When Fates Collide
by Leopold Goenitz
Summary: Just updating and fixing grammar… And for those who are worried, no. I’m not going to bash Akane in this story, but neither am I going to make a Ranma-Akane pairing for that matter not in this story. I do have plans of making one though...
1. Default Chapter

Author: Leopold Goenitz  
Email: Leopold_Gonietz@hotmail.com  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Anime tittles that I've used in   
here to make this story, and no, I'm not getting any profit from this   
so don't bother sending your lawyers after me!  
  
Warnings: Violence and possibly bad grammar. Beware...  
  
Before anyone says that I should use different punctuation   
methods, such as " " for speech, [ ] for thoughts, * * for Chinese,   
and ( ) for Pig Latin, or any other such crap. I'd like to point out   
that this system is just bad grammar. I won't do it.  
  
It should be pretty obvious who's saying what most of the time, so   
a system like that isn't needed. If you have a trouble, look at the   
context of what's being said, and it should be clear. If it isn't, it   
probably isn't that important, or just an ambiguous statement.  
  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
(Ranma 1/2 - Alternative universe multicrossover fanfic story)   
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
When Fates Collide  
+++++++++++++++++++  
Prologue  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
  
Along a small dirt road leading from the infamous Jusenkyo   
valley to the village of Joketsuko, there was a small group of people   
walking along its path. The first one being a large chubby looking   
Chinese man wearing a dark green Mao era 'uniform of the people'.   
Behind him came a similar built, if not slightly more overweighed   
Japanese man who was dressed in an old worn gi that had once   
been white but by now had gained a slightly yellowish tint to it. And   
as the last, but no means the least, there was the youngest of the   
group, a young man at the verge of maturing and who was dressed   
in similar clothes as the man in front of him, only cleaner. That   
boy's name was Ranma Saotome, the heir of the Saotome Mutsabeto   
Kakuto Ryu, and if the look on his face was anything to tell from,   
he wasn't very happy with his current situation.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Ranma's brows furrowed as he glanced down at his   
clenched hands, and then proceeded to sigh heavily as he opened   
them and revealed rather nasty looking claws that were now   
growing from his fingers, in the places where he used to have   
fingernails.  
  
"Now how the hell am I supposed to do? How am I going   
live normally from now on?" the boy muttered to himself as he   
debated his situation while his other hand travelled upward, his   
fingers brushing through his hair that ran at the sides of his head,   
his face grimacing slightly at what he felt.  
  
It was an ear all right, but now it had rather strange looking   
pointed look to it that one might expect seeing on elf, or some other   
fairy tale character. His eyes were also slightly different than normal   
humans, possessing a rather unnatural colour to them, with the   
irises of his eyes being dark yellow, almost golden, and the black   
pupils in the middle being long and narrowed into thin vertical slits   
like ones of a cat.  
  
Shaking his head the boy shook the thought out from his   
head; thoughts like that always made his spine shiver with fear.   
Thinking about cats was the last thing he wanted to do right now,   
no matter what he looked like right now, and quickly settled into his   
other trouble. His father.  
  
The fat glutton was still grumbling about the beating he had   
taken at the hands of his son who hadn't been very happy about the   
little transformation he had gone through, not that it had been the   
only one tough. No, Ranma hadn't done it only once today, but   
twice. First time being when he climbed out from the spring within   
his new form, and the second time being when he had discovered   
that the usual mean of reversing the curse didn't work on him,   
leaving him still on slightly ill mood despite the roughing he had   
given to his old man.  
  
"Stupid old man, if it hadn't been for you, I'd still be   
normal," the boy grumbled to himself while keeping short distance   
to his father who was on the process of following the guide who had   
graciously offered to take them to the closest village from where   
they could take the main road towards the east coast. At the time it   
seemed that perhaps going there would be the best, at least if the   
guide's words were true and that there was no cure to these curses.  
  
Genma ignored his child's mutterings and continued to think   
furiously of how to turn this latest turn of events into his favour.   
The guide hadn't been able to determine what was wrong with   
Ranma's curse, or what was its nature for that matter, there had   
not been any mentioning of it in the valley's history, so it left many   
openings into the Saotome patriarch's plans, not that there wouldn't   
have been many of them there before that. He had never been   
famous on the size of his brain; or rather in the use of the little he   
still had, so nothing good was not probably going to ensue from   
this.  
  
His main concern was the boy's ability to produce an heir to   
the future Anything Goes School of martial arts. He knew Soun   
would be most displeased if they union between their children would   
be ruined by something like this, but what was there for him to do?   
The guide had told him that there was no cure to the curses and   
that the hot water was the only known way to temporarily reverse   
them until the victims would be splashed with cold one.  
  
Glancing at the boy from over his shoulder, Genma narrowed   
his eyes at his son and wondered how he would explain his   
appearance to Soun when they would get back to Japan. It would   
take some convincing, but he didn't think his old friend would   
take much coaxing until he would believe that there was nothing   
to worry about how the boy looked right now. The union between   
the two families might still be salvageable and his early   
retirement guaranteed, but there was still a small nagging doubt   
throbbing in the back of his head about this whole thing.  
  
As when he looked the things in the long term, he became  
worried of how the rest of the people they would encounter, would   
react to the boy's looks. It wasn't everyday you saw people with   
long pointed ears, slit eyes and clawed hands.  
  
He narrowed his eyes even further at the claws and turned   
away with a light grimace as he recalled the feeling those blasted  
things had given him when the boy first time discovered their   
usefulness in mauling him and his body still covered with the marks   
they had left. "I have to do something about those if I'm to make   
the boy respect his elders again," he groused to himself silently and   
proceeded to follow the guide more closely.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Here be the village this one tell you about," the Jusenkyo   
guide said while gesturing the area around them. It was mostly   
farm area with lots of men working on the fields and only few   
women in sight, carrying swords and spears while clearly guarding   
the place for any possible threats instead of working with the men.  
  
Ranma noticed it quite quickly that it was only women that   
were doing the patrolling that only men worked, many of them   
looking rather miserable and defeated if the expressions on their   
faces was anything go by.  
  
"What's with this place? Why are all the guys working and   
all the girls just standing or patrolling around?" the boy asked   
curiously.  
  
"This be amazon village, have many powerful female warriors,   
they have no time to labour on fields. That be men's job." The guide   
explained.  
  
"Huh? So you're telling me that this place is practically run   
by chicks?" Ranma asked with slightly stupefied look on his face.   
"Man, I wonder how they've managed to live so far."  
  
The guide turned to look at the boy but did not say anything   
and just continued to walk. He didn't bother to say it to the boy that   
it would probably be pretty bad thing for him if any of the amazons   
heard and understood what he had just said, but that was most   
unlikely to happen since the amazons weren't very well educated in   
the foreign languages if at all.  
  
Genma just growled. He had gotten splashed with cold water again,   
this time by an extremely sudden and suspiciously short rainstorm that   
had travelled across the hills they had used as an shortcut to get   
here bit faster. Strangely it wad only him that the storm had wetted,   
Ranma and the guide were still dry and clean like the way they had   
been when they first left the valley.  
  
As they walked deeper into the village, it became obvious to  
the two foreign visitors that this place was indeed ruled by women.  
While Genma seemed to mostly ignore it, Ranma found it rather   
shocking to see women doing the things he usually saw men doing   
in the other villages they had passed when they first came into   
China. He felt almost bad for the poor guys who he saw there,   
majority of them looking as if they had lost their souls and will to   
live. It made him wonder why they were still here if the conditions   
were so bad.  
  
"Aaa, we be very lucky," the guide suddenly exclaimed,   
tearing Ranma's attention from his earlier observation. "There be a   
tournament here, many proud warriors fight here today to test skills   
and strength," he continued and pointed at the center of the village   
where they had just arrived. It was the area where majority of the   
main buildings seemed to be clustered around, there seemed to be   
even a inn and a supply shop there.  
  
Both Ranma and Genma turned to look what the guide had   
pointed at and saw a huge crowd surrounding two massive wooden   
pillars that had been raised almost thirty feet off the ground with   
one similar pillar set horizontally on top of them. But that wasn't   
what caught their interests, no. It was the two women who were on   
top of it, fighting with weapons that one did not see being used   
often these days.  
  
"They're both women, right?" Ranma asked dumbly as he  
stared at the guide and pointed at the two combatants.  
  
The other woman was an old, fat, and ugly looking thing   
with nine feet long two inches thick pole in her hands. On the other   
end of the pole there was a nasty looking two feet long spiked   
mace, many of its spikes having been bent by the enemy's two   
huge, smoot mace-like weapons tough.  
  
Her opponent was a young and pretty looking girl with long   
purple hair that billowed behind her as she moved in the   
coordinated patterns, her maces swinging seemingly only to block   
or parry the strikes the other woman was aiming at her. She was   
the one Ranma was willing to bet to be the winner of this   
tournament, tough.   
  
"Hmm...she has some serious power there," the boy   
muttered and crossed his arms as he came a halt just behind the   
outer rim of the crowd, not noticing that his father was no longer   
standing by his side anymore.   
  
The mentioned fool was too busy eating at the table where   
it had seen the large bouquet of food to take notice of the small   
sign that had been set next to the table, not that it would have   
made any difference since he couldn't read Chinese. But it still   
didn't change the fact of what he was doing.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Xian Pu, the purple haired amazon who was fighting over at   
the log, dodged low her opponent's latest attack and skilfully dove   
underneath the offending mace that had threatened to make mince   
meat of her head, and raised then her right hand bonbori in a wide   
arc in order to smack her opponent with what she believed to be the   
decisive strike.  
  
She was not disappointed when she felt the weapon in her   
hand vibrate with the impact it made with her opponent's chest   
armor, or when she saw the mentioned woman being plummeted   
into the air and down from the challenge log like three hundred   
pound ugly pigeon that couldn't fly.   
  
"Too easy," she whispered to herself. There hadn't been a   
single doubt of her victory when she first came into the challenge   
area, as it had been her great grandmother who had coaxed her   
into this for the past ten years.  
  
With the last challenger having been knocked off the log,   
Xian Pu could finally stand up and take in the cheers of the people   
who surrounded her, most of them being her fellow villagers. This   
was what she lived for, total and unquestionable admiration from   
other people, but this euphoric feeling did not last very long when   
she eyes caught the certain panda feasting upon _her_ victory   
prize.  
  
"What is the meaning of this!? Who let that thing in here?!"   
she screamed angrily and leapt off from the log in a impressive   
thirty feet long leap that easily carried her over the crowd and into   
striking distance from the imposing animal. Unfortunately she   
misjudged the animal's alertness and missed by hair's length from   
crushing its skull on the table, instead smashing the particular table   
in half with splinters flying into every direction.  
  
"Who brought this thing here?!" she screamed once more and   
pointed one of her bonbori maces at the imposing animal while giving   
the people around her a hard glare. Everybody seemed to just look at   
one another and shrug their shoulders. Well, everybody except _him_.  
  
He was a young man, dressed in strange white outfit that   
was made from some sort of thick cloth that obviously could take   
some punishment before breaking, but it wasn't his clothes that   
drew her attention. There was something odd about him, aside   
being foreigner and a cute looking too, at least on her opinion.  
  
The boy in question turned around and seemed to notice   
her, but then quickly averted his eyes from her when he noticed   
something next to her. And if the way the size of his eyes suddenly   
grew was anything to judge from when he saw the panda, Xian Pu   
felt that it was pretty firm bet to think that the animal was his, but   
she still wanted to make sure. "Is this beast yours?" she asked, not   
pretending to hide a single ounce of her anger when she said it.  
  
The boy just blinked at her, seemingly not understanding a   
word she had said and seemed to concentrate on the panda again   
when he began to approach it. He shouted something to the panda   
and it seemed to just blink at him and then resume eating what it   
had started while pulling some sort of wooden sing from behind its   
back. How it had gotten there would remain as an eternal mystery   
to her and anyone else at present.   
  
But this wasn't what really ticked Xian Pu off, no. It was the   
fact that the boy was obviously ignoring her. And that would not   
just do.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Ranma got a nasty shiver when he heard the winner of the   
tournament scream something in anger and then leap over the   
crowd where he couldn't see her at first. That was the first moment   
he realized his father was not standing beside him anymore and   
began to feel a pit growing inside him, as with his luck, the old fool   
was probably already neck deep in crap and most likely would be   
pulling him down alongside with him.  
  
Then he heard something break and noticed everybody's   
attention turning to the right where he saw the tournament winner,   
the cute Chinese girl with purple hair, standing before his father   
while brandishing one of her maces at him and shouting something   
to the crowd around him. He wasn't sure, but he felt that she had   
aimed her gaze at him but then dismissed it, he had to get his lousy   
old man off his butt and fix the damage he had caused or at least   
pay it up.  
  
"Look what you've gotten us into again, old man! Can't you  
keep your paws off anything anymore?!" the boy ranted angrily   
before stomping to his father's side, ready to pound him into inch of   
his life again.  
  
Genma just looked at him with his beady eyes, seemingly   
not liking the tone his son was using when addressing him, and   
pulled out one of those weird signs he had started to create from   
somewhere. "Insolent boy, I was just eating here when she   
attacked," said the sign in his hands, or paws, whatever.  
  
Ranma just gave his father an eye, one that told him that   
his son wasn't buying it. But before he could say anything else the   
guide burst between them.  
  
"What sirs do? You eat victory prize!!" the Chinese man   
gasped scandalously while almost grabbing Genma from his collar   
and then turned to point at the purple haired girl who had begun to   
grow a rather nasty scowl on her face. "Winner of tournament be   
very angry, this be dishonourable if prize not compensated."  
  
Both Ranma and Genma blinked, first at each other and   
then at the mace brandishing amazon girl, and once again at each   
other. For a moment Genma considered donating his son for the   
villagers to save his own skin and later on steal the boy back if   
possible, but he knew he couldn't take that risk now that he was   
supposed to take the boy to the Tendo's and marry him off to one of   
Soun's daughters so that he could go on a early retirement and live   
off his son's sweat, luxuriously of course. Thus he came with the   
idea he represented to his son.  
  
"Son, why not duel her for the prize?" said the next sign  
Genma had raised from whatever pocket space he had managed to   
create, Ranma blinked and made a mental note to ask his father of   
how to create one of those.  
  
"Hmm, why not?" Ranma agreed with a shrug as he turned   
to assess the amazon. She was clearly skilled and probably more   
than a handful for someone who had been practicing martial arts for   
most of their lives, bur he hadn't just practiced it, he had lived it, so   
he doubted if she'd be able to even come close to him. Especially   
now that he had acquired his new body.  
  
He turned to face the guide and nodded towards the girl,   
"Can you ask her if she'd fight for the prize? If I win, then wouldn't   
it clean the slate between us?"  
  
The guide blinked at the boy and then at the fat panda   
beside him, but then just shrugged and translated the boy's   
question to the amazon girl who suddenly grew rather anxious. The   
malicious smile on her face was, however, anything but friendly,   
and it was directed towards Genma.  
  
"She say it be all right," the guide translated what the girl  
said and then seemed to wait as the girl continued and then   
continued, "But if you loose, she want your pet panda so she and   
her fellow villagers can make feast from it."  
  
Genma blinked at this and seemed to grow oddly tense   
suddenly, he didn't like that idea, but then calmed a bit when he   
realized it would be just that one girl his son would have to fight.   
Surely his manly son could easily take her out without damaging   
anything important.  
  
A small frown appeared on Ranma's face as he saw his   
father's relieved, and somewhat supportive gestures. He didn't feel   
too good about pulling his old man's fat out of the oven again, but   
he couldn't just let him die here, especially like that, no matter how   
tempting the idea was at first. He still had his honour to uphold, no   
mater how badly his father had marred his own.  
  
And so Ranma nodded and followed the smiling amazon as   
she lead him to the challenge log, the crowds around him parting   
away with something that made him feel bit uncomfortable. He had   
never liked being the center of the attention, and now even less if   
they happened to notice the 'slight' deformations on his   
appearance.  
  
"Here's hoping nobody notices them before I'm through   
here," the boy thought nervously and made sure to keep his hands   
closed into fists so that nobody would notice his claws, as while they   
were relatively small, the way they curved was making them quite   
obvious if anyone saw them. Luckily his hair hid most of his ears so   
he didn't need to worry about them.  
  
And before he even knew it, he was on the log and looking   
at his opponent with what could be described only as worry. He   
didn't wish to be fighting this fight, but he had no choice if he   
wanted to keep his honour intact, or so he believed...  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
In the beginning both the amazon girl and Ranma were just   
looking one another, assessing the skill levels and possible techniques   
they both might be using. While Xian Pu's stance was firm and   
elegant, Ranma's was relaxed and loose and thus easily misleading,   
but those few among the crowd that were looking and had enough   
knowledge on the art of hand to hand combat, saw it right away that   
the fight was anything but balanced.  
  
Xian Pu might have been skilled and experienced, a fact that she   
had proven frequently, but when it came to mastery of her art, she was   
still far away from point where her current opponent was. As for   
someone to be standing on the challenge log with such ease as the boy   
was showing was telling that he was both skilled and confident. No,   
this fight was far from easy for the young amazon.  
  
This was when the referee gave the fighters the signal to begin.  
  
When the fight had started, Ranma had become quite convinced   
that his opponent was as good as he had blieved. The amazon girl was   
fast, no, scratch that, she was _really_ fast, her arms swinging her   
giant maces as if they didn't weight her at all. But Ranma was still   
faster.  
  
It was clearly frustrating to his enemy to see him weave   
around her strikes as if the whole thing had been set up and that he   
was just an actor following the script. She, nor anyone else except   
Ranma, did not however notice the confused frown the boy's face   
during all this.  
  
"How am I doing this? I don't remember being _this_ fast   
before," the boy thought to himself with slight irritation. It wasn't   
much of a trouble on its own, but the added speed of his reflexes   
and muscles was forcing him to be wary with his movement, as it   
would take some time to adjust to them.  
  
The girl snarled hatefully at him and she tried to bash him   
to the contest log with a massive overhead smash that would have   
probably either killed or crippled him had he let it hit him. Instead   
he simply jumped back, blinked at the girl, and then suddenly drove   
his foot on her shoulder to make her stumble back.   
  
Ranma knew he could have kicked her on the face, thanks   
to her poor tactic, but chose not to mar her looks since it was bad   
enough alone that he was fighting a girl altogether. It wasn't   
honourable, or his father had always told him.   
  
"Now, how am I going to end this without hurting her too much?"   
he pondered to himself as he pushed the girl backward by taking few   
rapid steps towards her position, keeping her from taking the   
offensive again. "Maybe if I..." he ventured with a sudden calm   
falling over his face as he stopped moving and waited for the amazon   
to attack again.  
  
He knew he was faster and that he could easily outmanoeuvre   
her and so he prepared himself for a fast overhead jump, hoping that   
he would catch his agile opponent before she could react to his   
cunning plan. If this failed, he knew that he would either have a   
massive headache and a few broken bones, as he doubted that he   
could take even a single strike from those maces without getting at   
least bruised.  
  
Xian Pu watched the boy going into a low stance and saw this as   
an opening and quickly tried to lash her opponent with a fast   
horizontal sweep. She was trying to use it to make the boy to dodge   
even lower and this way to allow her to bash him with another   
overhead swing.   
  
But instead of dodging under the swing, the boy did something   
that caught her completely off guard, he jumped over it, and not just   
the strike but his opponent too, causing the surprised amazon to loose   
her momentum and turn around in ill prepared stance that soon   
became her loss.  
  
Ranma didn't waste his chance, and right after landing   
behind the purple haired girl's back, he dove in and struck her with   
an open palm strike right to the gut, this way hoping to drive all the air out from her lungs and thus submitting her into unconsciousness.   
  
But then he realized he had made a mistake. He had   
miscalculated his own strength. "No!" he gasped and watched the   
events fold with fear grasping his heart.  
  
Xian Pu hackled as the air rushed out from her lungs, her   
eyes almost bulging out from their sockets at the mind boggling   
strength she was being struck with. Then the next thing she knew   
was the odd sensation of weightlessness and rushing air that made   
her hair billow in front of her, then last came the darkness, but not   
before allowing her to hear the sickening crunch that her body   
made when it crashed through the stone wall that had been unlucky   
enough to stand in her flight path.  
  
A deep pit formed inside Ranma's gut when he saw this. "Oh   
my god, I killed her," he muttered in horror and launched himself   
off the log before anyone else from the crowd could even register   
what had happened, and by the time they did Ranma was already   
dashing towards the damaged building with cloud of dust rising   
behind his track.  
  
"No, please God no, don't do this to me," Ranma prayed as   
he came to the pile of debris and broken furniture that had   
crumbled and/or fallen on top of the unmoving and clearly   
unconscious amazon maiden. With extreme care and delicacy he   
dug the girl from underneath it and slowly, and fearfully touched  
her neck.  
  
"...Thank God," he whispered and hung his head when he   
felt the girl's pulse. She was still alive. But this was not a moment   
where he could rest at ease, the villagers wouldn't probably be   
taking this well and even if they wouldn't, he was sure they would   
represent all kinds of questions of how he did this, surely by then   
noticing his rather odd appearance if they already hadn't. And that   
was something he'd like to avoid if possible.  
  
He didn't need to turn around to see that there were already   
few of the villagers standing by the door, slightly fearfully trying to   
see what was happening inside. Since he already knew the girl   
would survive, there was no reason for him to stay, and thus he   
bound through the hole the girl had made when he had punched her   
through it and looked for his father before rushing to his side. "The   
girl's gona survive, but I'm not gona stay here," was all that he said   
before he picked up his backpack and began to run away.  
  
Genma frowned towards the house, thinking about how his   
son had managed to punch the girl with so much force as to make   
her fly over forty feet and through the wall that had been, but then   
realized he was standing alone there with only his own backpack   
standing beside him and many of the villagers looking at him   
strangely. "Uh oh," he thought and quickly followed his son's   
example before anyone would even think of trying to stop him and   
make a meal out of him for what his son had done to their  
champion.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
From among the crowds, a withered old woman narrowed   
her eyes at the fleeing pair, but was moving towards the damaged   
house instead of the duo as her main concern was the girl. She   
quickly entered into the room where the unconscious girl was and   
sighed from the relief after discovering that the girl was at least   
alive.  
  
She knelt down at the girl's side and touched several spots   
across her body, coming to the conclusion that the girl had not   
suffered anything major aside the concussion. It seemed that   
training the girl into the secrets of Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking   
Point) had paid off or the girl might be dead now, or cripple at least.  
  
"Get her to the village healer and tell them to patch her up   
at the best of their abilities, she needs to be up and going as soon   
as possible," she commanded at the few villagers who had taken   
the courage to approach the village matriarch and her unconscious   
great granddaughter.  
  
The two women and one man looked at one another and   
then nodded before rushing to the purple haired girl's side and   
lifting her carefully as they began to carry her to the healer's hut.   
After they had left, the old woman stayed behind as she began to   
assess the damage she was seeing and then thinking about how it   
had been caused.  
  
"That boy is strong, enormously so," she mentally noted to   
herself and scratched her chin. It was slightly disturbing to her to   
see a mere male possessing a strength like this, let alone the speed   
she had seen him moving with. Her great granddaughter had not   
been trained in the advanced speed techniques, but even with those   
she doubted that her dear relative would have not stood a chance   
against this stranger. But then a heavy frown fell upon her face as   
she recalled what she had felt when she first saw the boy.  
  
The boy carried a strange aura around him, one that   
brought a metaphor of two different forces battling with each other,   
negative and positive, like putting two opposite sides of a magnet   
against one another. This hadn't caught her attention until the boy   
had challenged her great granddaughter, but before she could come   
to any conclusion about him, he had abruptly made his aura shift   
into what she had seen as the 'negative' plane when he had lashed   
out with that devastative punch of his that had made her great   
granddaughter fly across the air and through the wall of the small   
home.  
  
"I don't know what caused it, but I'll be damned if I don't   
figure it out," the old crone muttered to herself. She would join her   
great granddaughter when she would wake up and go searching for   
her new husband, as she didn't feel quite safe by leaving her only   
remaining relative with such a dangerous task, especially if the boy   
proved to be hostile.  
  
"I will get to the bottom of this. This I swear," she thought   
to herself as she set her gnarled staff into upward position before   
jumping on top of it and using it to pogoe out from the building.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Damn!" Ranma cursed and threw another pebble into the   
campfire, his father's unconscious form lying not too far away from   
him. He had decked the old man down after he hadn't stopped   
bugging him about how he had done that punch even tough he had   
asked him to, and eventually had made him demonstrate it by using   
his father's own head as a target to it.  
  
But it wasn't that which was making him so gloomy, no. It   
was the fact that he had used it on that girl, a girl for heaven's   
sake! He hadn't struck a girl in his whole life, at least to his   
knowledge, and now he had nearly killed one thanks to his   
unthoughtfulness.  
  
With hateful look in his eyes he pulled his right hand up, the   
one he ad used to strike at the girl, and clenched it tightly into a   
fist, drawing blood as he dug his claws into his own palm. When he   
opened it, there were four thin, long trails of blood running down his   
arm, he continued to glare at them, but then seemed to change his   
gaze into more confused one when he noticed that the wounds were   
already almost completely healed. "What the...?"  
  
He touched them and realized it was true. There wasn't   
even a mark left of the cuts he had just made. "How...?" he asked   
himself, but then quickly shut himself up when he realized that it   
must have been connected to everything else that had been going   
on with him after his transformation. Whatever it was that he had   
become, was not only insanely fast, strong, and weird looking, but   
also possessed a disturbingly fast healing rate.  
  
At first he just stared at his hand, turning it to look at it   
from all angles, but then remembered what he had first been doing   
and quickly dropped this new matter completely, thinking that this   
mystery was not worth troubling himself for as he was mostly likely   
not going to solve it with his current knowledge.  
  
Ranma quickly fell back into his brooding state and turned   
his tired gaze towards the heavens before falling on his back. The   
events that had happened in that village was forcing him to take up   
on the decision of dedicating himself to learn how to control his new   
abilities before he would fight again, as while he didn't worry much   
about his father, he could absorb quite a lot of beating, he still   
needed to be careful around people who couldn't take that much   
punishment as he had given to that unfortunate amazon.  
  
Thinking about the amazon girl strangely brought bit   
conflicted feelings inside him. While he was worried of her health, as   
he had only made sure that her heart was beating and that she was   
breathing, he was also having this feeling she had brought into his   
chest when he had first seen her. It felt kind of warm and fuzzy. "I   
wonder what it is..." Ranma mentally mumbled to himself but then   
decided to let the matter drop and turn for the night. It had been a   
long day and it would be that tomorrow too since they had left the   
guide into the village when he and his father had fled from there,   
meaning that they would have to go blindly to the east and hope   
they didn't encounter any trouble before they would reach the   
shore...but then again, Ranma knew would be wishing against the   
their usual luck if he did that and decided that he would just take   
the things as they came.  
  
"I hate my life," he muttered as he closed his eyes and   
rolled off into sleep.  
  
+++++++++++++++++++  
End of prologue...  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
Next chapter: Fiancée trouble...  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
  
Ok, this is my first fanfic I've represented to the larger public, so   
please be gentle with it. I'm sorry if it wasn't very long, but it is a   
prologue and I'll try to write the next chapter a bit longer.  
  
I know I'm no great writer and that there might be a lot of errors in   
my grammar, I am trying to polish these two sections the best I   
can, but I can't do it unless nobody lets me know what's wrong, so   
feel free to point out typing errors or anything that you feel like   
complaining except OOC reports since it would be a waste of time.   
This _is_ fanfiction, so the characters are usually expected to act   
differently than in the original story, unless the author wishes to   
follow the character patterns of course, but that's their decision, not   
necessarily mine.  
  
I'll be writing the next chapter regardless to the replies I'll be   
getting from this tough, but will need to hear your opinions if you   
wish this to continue, or else I'll let this story wither up and die. Its   
survival depends on you people, yes _you_!  
  
But enough babbling, do go and write what you think of this story   
on the review board or send me an email, I'll try to look into both of   
them as soon as I can.  
  
-Goenitz 


	2. Here's Ranma!

Author: Leopold Goenitz  
Email: Leopold_Goenitz@hotmail.com  
  
Author notes: Thanks for the replies people, I appreciate them and please do   
keep them coming. I also wanted to tell you that while this chapter seems to go   
along the original canon version, I assure you that it _will_ steer into a whole   
different course...and to the repeated question whether Ranma is a Youkai or   
not, the answer is...a secret. :P  
  
Disclaimer: You know what is supposed to be here so I won't bother myself with   
it...  
  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
(Ranma 1/2 - Alternative universe multicrossover fanfic story)   
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
When Fates Collide  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
Chapter 1 - Here's Ranma!  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
It was raining again. Dark clouds hung heavily over the area of Tokyo that was   
known as Nerima, the rain pouring down as if a dam had broken down somewhere in   
heaven. The residents living in the district weren't disturbed by this however,   
heavy rains, even abrupt ones, were very common...if not painfully frequent.  
  
The duo walking down the streets of the southern section of this particular   
district wouldn't have minded if would have been a dry day, tough. One of them   
was a panda, at least currently, and another was a young man with black shoulder   
length hair that was tied into a ponytail, dressed in black hakama and baggy   
black Chinese robes with thick, dark red belt running around his waist. They   
were both carrying large backpacks but only the boy had an umbrella, made from   
simple bamboo that had been painted red.  
  
"So like, how far is this old friend of yours?" asked the boy while glaring at   
the panda.  
  
"Not far," said the sign the animal had raised above its head and after few   
seconds flipped it over with other words decorating its surface, "Only two or   
three blocks from here."  
  
"Oh, good. Because I don't wanna walk in this damn rain for the whole evening,"   
the boy complained and glared at the clouds above.  
  
"Stop complaining, it's not like you have anything to worry about anymore," said   
the another sign the animal had pulled from somewhere, its eyes glaring at the   
boy with small amount of bitterness.  
  
The boy just snorted and ignored the looks he had been given. "Well at least you   
can still go and look fully human for as long as you don't get hit by cold   
water, I'm stuck as I am now," he thought darkly as he followed the animal's   
lead.  
  
In a short while they finally arrived to their destination, or what the boy   
believed to be their stop if his father's reaction upon seeing the place was   
anything to judge from. It was a large house with tall concrete fence running   
around it and if the sign was telling the truth, someone was practicing an   
Anything Goes Style in there.  
  
"What's this pop? You never told me there were others practicing the same art as   
we are," the boy said while pointing at the large sign that hung above the gate   
doors with words, "Tendo Dojo Of Anything Goes School".  
  
  
"Soun is an old friend of mine," the panda replied by flipping his sign again,   
"He and I practiced under the same master."  
  
"The one you keep moaning about in your dreams? Begging for mercy and stuff?"   
snorted the boy, but then turned back to the subject he had intended. "Is this   
friend of yours good at what he does and do you know if he has any students   
worth my time?"  
  
The panda seemed to be bit offended by the first remark but let it slide and   
answered to the boy's question. "Soun was as good as I when we parted," flips a   
sign, "So I believe his students must be as good as he was back then."  
  
"So, in other words, not worth a dime," the boy said arrogantly and stepped   
forth to open the gates. "Pop, you know as well as I know, that anyone who's as   
good as you and not better, can't even hope to stand against me."  
  
The panda glared at the boy with heated look in its eyes but didn't say anything   
as it resigned itself just to follow the boy as he entered the inner grounds of   
the Tendo household.  
  
It was pretty nice place considering it was near Tokyo. It had several sakura   
trees at the back and few at the sides, couple of bushes and flower batches   
planted at the front. Not something you saw at every normal private home, but   
then again, if the looks were anything go by, then the Tendo household was   
anything but normal or usual.  
  
The main building itself was quite large and if one went and took a look around   
it, they would have seen a real life sized dojo built at the backyard. No, this   
home was anything but normal.  
  
"Hmm...I wonder what kind of people live in here," the boy muttered to himself   
and let the panda pass him so that it could go and knock on the door and let the   
residents know that they were there. He didn't bother to point it out to his   
father that he was still in his panda form, as he had stopped caring after the   
first three dozen times the fat fool had gotten himself into trouble this way.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Oooooh! That must be Ranma," exclaimed the middle Tendo daughter, Nabiki, who   
had dressed into a nice dark green kimono that strangely reminded a one huge   
thousand yen bill. She stood up from the rest of the family and rushed towards   
the door with her father, Soun, following closely behind her.  
  
"Saotome-san, finally!" Soun wept as he dashed after his daughter, it had over   
ten years since he saw his old friend and it was already brining the good old   
memories back. He was a tall, well over forty years old man, with long black   
hair and trimmed moustaches.  
  
"Oh, great...just when I was hoping that they wouldn't come," grumbled the   
youngest of the Tendo family, namely Akane. She was the youngest of the three   
Tendo daughters and was currently dressed in her white gi that she hadn't   
bothered to go change yet. It was quite clear that she was angry about something   
and that this something had everything to do with the people her older sister   
and father were so anxiously waiting for.  
  
Akane's eldest sister, Kasumi, just smiled sweetly as always from the other end  
of the low table they had been sitting around when their father first announced   
the little pact he and his old friend had made before anyone of them had been   
even born.  
  
But then her brooding was cut off by the terrified shriek from the door and the   
sound of two people running back towards the living room. Akane jumped to her   
feet and watched as Nabiki and Soun rushed from behind the hallway corner with   
fearful looks on their faces.  
  
"Oh my, what happened?" asked the eldest daughter as she stood up and went to   
calm her father.   
  
Soun didn't need to answer to that when the mass of soaking black and white fur   
lumbered down the hallway. It was a panda, a very big, very fat, and very dirty   
looking panda. "Oh my...."  
  
The first thing the three daughters did was to push their father in between them   
and the hulking animal, as none of them, not even Akane for the moment, believed   
they were in any position in stopping it.  
  
"Daddy, do something, don't let it just waltz in," Nabiki ordered her father   
while trying to keep his stiffened body from falling to the floor. "You are a   
martial artist aren't you?"  
  
Akane seemed to be about to say something to that, but cut herself off when she   
noticed that the animal was moving away from the hallway entry and that there   
was a young looking man standing there now. "Who are you?"  
  
The boy who was now at the center of the Tendo family's attention was a tall,   
well built if the width of his shoulders was anything to judge from, mildly   
handsome, and dressed in well concealing black Chinese robes that kept his hands   
hidden inside the sleeves.  
  
"Hi," the boy quipped almost casually and then turned to glare at the panda   
before turning back to the slightly confused and terrified family. "Sorry about   
this, we didn't mean to startle you or anything, and I know it's bit odd to ask   
you this, but you wouldn't have any hot water nearby?"  
  
"Why yes, wait here for a moment, I will get you some," replied the ever helpful   
Kasumi that would have probably assisted even a burglar in finding their family   
jewels had they had any.  
  
The middle and the youngest Tendo daughter stared a bit after their eldest   
sister but then turned to look back at the stranger and his odd pet. "Who are   
you? And what are you doing here?!" Nabiki snapped and eyed at the boy warily,   
she was finding her eyes locked onto his face which she was finding both   
surprisingly attractive and bit strange for some reason.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself," the boy replied while scratching   
his neck with embarrassed look on his face. "My name's Ranma, and when I get hot   
water, I'll show you my old man. He had some business with you but I'm not quite   
sure what yet," he said and turned to look at the large panda at his side.  
  
"Y-You're Ranma, Ranma Saotome?" the Tendo patriarch asked, now surprisingly   
lively again, there seemed to be some tears to be building up in his eyes too.  
  
"Uh, yeah. What of it?" the boy said while edging away from the older man. He  
was getting a strange feeling from the way Soun was looking at him and nearly   
decked the man when he rushed in and took him into a bear hug.  
  
"Waaaaaah! Finally the schools can be united!" Soun wept as he held the boy. He   
had intended to pick up the boy and start dancing from joy, but had quickly   
found out that he was unable to even budge the boy from his place and just   
settled into hugging.  
  
"What the...?" muttered the boy as he turned to look at the panda with a   
questioning look. "Just what kind of crap have you pulled me into this time?"  
  
The Tendo patriarch seemed to ignore this as he took place at the boy's side and   
gestured at his daughters. "These are my daughters. That's Akane, she's sixteen,   
and next to her is Nabiki, nineteen, and lastly Kasumi," he pointed at the   
eldest daughter who was smilingly coming from out of the kitchen with small pail   
of hot water in her hands, "Who is nineteen. Pick anyone you like."  
  
"Pick? Why? Whatever for?" the boy asked dumbly as he continued to stare at the   
three girls.  
  
Akane was fuming angrily at the boy, clearly upset about something. Nabiki was   
smiling like a cat that had just eaten the canary, something that made Ranma   
feel very uncomfortable. And then there was Kasumi who just smiled and handed   
him the water pail. "Here you go."  
  
"Well, one of them is going to be your fiancée, son, you must choose one of   
them," replied Soun who was completely oblivious to the way the boy's shoulder's   
suddenly tensed.  
  
"...Old man..." Ranma growled and gripped the pain in his hands with bit more   
strength than he had intended, digging his one and a half inches long claws into   
it as if it were made from paper. Then without a single warning he flung the   
pail at the panda, immediately transforming it into its human form, and then   
proceeded to grab his father from his gi collar before lifting him to the air.   
"What the hell is he talking about, pop? Spit it out or I might start  
considering skinning myself a panda rug!"  
  
The Tendo family was mostly in shock after seeing the transformation, well   
everybody except Kasumi who just blinked at the transformation and then   
continued to smile cheerfully as she took her place around the table again.  
  
"Listen boy, this is a matter of family honour," Genma stuttered as he fought to   
release himself from his son's iron grip, but quickly finding it useless since   
the boy had become far more stronger than he could have ever imagined. "This is   
something Tendo and I agreed to almost twenty years ago, the schools must be   
united through the marriage of our children!"  
  
"Aaargh!" the boy roared in frustration, sounding surprisingly animalistic, and   
immediately threw his fat father to the floor with almost enough strength to   
make the floorboards to crack. "Honour this, honour that! I'm getting sick of   
this old man!!" he continued and glared at his father who was trying to look   
stern despite the obvious fear he had for his son. "You always use that damn   
honour excuse to save your own ass, but today it ends! I'm not gona marry   
someone I don't even know, just because of some stupid agreement you and old   
friend made while probably being too drunk to even think straight!"  
  
"Now look here boy..." Genma began but was promptly cut off when his son planted   
a foot on his stomach.  
  
"Shut up!" the boy shouted angrily and continued to drive his foot on the older   
man's gut. "I don't even care to start counting how many times you've used me to   
get off from some deal and feed that bottomless pit you call your stomach!!"  
  
The Tendo family was just staring at the proceedings, well except Kasumi who was   
starting to frown slightly disapprovingly at the boy's behaviour. It wasn't just   
proper to come into someone else's home and start beating some poor man who   
turned into a panda.  
  
"Umm, daddy...are you sure these are the people you've been waiting for?" Nabiki   
asked from her father after getting over the initial shock she had received from   
seeing the Saotome patriarch turn back into human.  
  
"Uh, I believe so..." Soun muttered, still slightly confused by all this, but   
then seemed to snap out from it when he seemed to recognize his old friend.   
"Genma? Is that truly you?!"  
  
"Yes, ugh, now would mind helping me?!" the other man groaned from underneath   
his son's foot who was still grinding him to the floor.  
  
Luckily Soun didn't need to do anything as Ranma quickly seemed to grow bored   
with what he was doing and just decided to kick his old man through the open   
doorway that was standing beside them, and right into the large koi pond that   
stood in the middle of the backyard.  
  
"Ingrate!" said the sign the large panda was holding up once it resurfaced from  
the pond, glaring daggers at the boy who had thrown it in there.  
  
"Complain all you want, old man, I won't go with this idiotic agreement just   
because you say so!" shouted the boy.  
  
For a moment Genma seemed to be ready to explode, but then stopped and took   
rather disturbing smile on its face as it produced another sing from behind its   
back. "Your mother also agreed to this, boy."  
  
"What? Mom..." the boy gasped and staggered back as if given a slap. "...I...she   
wouldn't..." he muttered but then just stomped his foot on the floor. "Damn!!   
Fine, I'll go with this, but only if they're going with it too!" the boy shouted   
and gestured towards the three girls. "If they don't want this, then I believe   
we can all just forget about this!"  
  
"I'm not going to marry some stupid boy!" Akane spat angrily and almost hit her   
fist on the table but was stopped by her eldest sister's calming hand.  
  
"Oh, then what were you intending to marry, sis? A girl perhaps?" Nabiki quipped   
calmly as she eyed her sister.  
  
"Ack! No, of course not and you know it Nabiki!" Akane shouted back at her   
sister with her cheeks burning completely red. "I want a man, a real man, not  
some...boy!"  
  
Nabiki smiled at this, she had been just teasing her sister, but now her   
attention was fully back at their guests. The boy was obviously someone that her   
eyes could get used to look at, but she wasn't quite sure if she wanted to share   
her life with him just with one day's experience and she surely didn't want to   
hitch her older sister with someone whom they barely knew, and so she came up   
with a plan.  
  
"Daddy, can I suggest something?" she said as she stood up and walked next to   
Ranma. "Since Ranma here is so considerate as to think about our opinion too,   
I'd like to propose that he spends some time with us before any one of us   
decides whether to, or not to marry him."  
  
"I..." Soun muttered and glanced at his transformed friend, or whom he believed   
to be his old friend Genma, and then turned back to his daughter. "I guess   
so..." Even Genma seemed to agree to this, albeit slightly reluctantly if the   
frown on his fur covered face was anything to tell from.  
  
"Is two weeks enough?" asked Nabiki as she turned around to face the boy who was   
now just staring at her with what look of utter confusion.  
  
"Um, I guess so..." the boy replied, clearly unsure what to think right now.   
"...if that's what you want," he added and turned his face to look at the rest   
of the Tendo daughters. Akane just huffed and turned away from him while Kasumi   
just smiled and nodded approvingly towards Nabiki.  
  
"Great, then it's a deal," Nabiki quipped. She was pretty sure she could get her   
and her sisters off the hook if the boy proved to be anything but ideal fiancé,   
or at least hook him up with Akane if the worst came to be. But then her   
attention was turned back to Genma, who was now standing at the porch with   
slightly annoyed look on his face. "And if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear   
an explanation to why your father turns into a panda," she added and pointed at   
the large animal.  
  
"Well, it's a long story, so I suggest we all sit down," the boy sighed as he   
eyed at his father and then moved towards the table before addressing the eldest   
Tendo daughter, "And if you could, I think my old man would appreciate if   
someone brought some more hot water to him so that he could change back into his   
normal form again."  
  
Kasumi just nodded and happily went to pick up the fallen pail before rushing   
into the kitchen. Meanwhile rest were setting themselves around the table,   
including Genma who had grown slightly less agitated than what he had been few   
moments before.  
  
"Well, where should I begin?" muttered the boy while crossing his arms, slipping   
both of his hands into the sleeves as he did this. He turned to look at his   
father and decided that perhaps the Jusenkyo was the best place to start...  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
About an hour or so later...  
  
"...so your father turns into a panda whenever he comes into contact with cold   
water and back into human when its hot, right?" asked Nabiki.  
  
"That's about it," Ranma nodded. He had let his old man tell most of the story,   
but had added a few details to whenever the fat fool had tried to skip the parts   
like how they had ignored the guide, or not having even bothered to learn what   
the description about Jusenkyo had really meant before going there.  
  
"And you fell into spring too?" asked the same girl as she peered at the boy   
suspiciously. "Then, what you turn into? A panda too?" She didn't like the idea   
and was already considering dumping the engagement to her little sister, as she   
surely had no intentions of sharing the rest of her life with someone who turned   
into a panda occasionally.  
  
"Yes, and no, I do not turn into a panda," the boy answered calmly. "If it's the   
curse you wish to see, then I can inform you that its what you're looking at   
right now." To elaborate his words he pulled his hands out from the sleeves and   
showed the confused looking girls his rather distinctive finger nails.  
  
Everybody except Kasumi and Genma started dumbly at the claws and gasped when   
they saw them stick out even further, now curving full three and a half inches.  
  
"Wha-What are you?" Akane asked with slight wavering in her voice, while she   
might have hated Ranma for just being a boy, she was still slightly disturbed by   
what she was seeing.  
  
"I dunno," the boy said and shrugged his shoulders almost casually, "I stopped   
being worrying about it too much after I realized that nobody didn't seem to   
notice the differences in me as long as I didn't act strangely."  
  
"Uh, sorry to interrupt, but if the curses are reversible with hot water, then   
why haven't you turned back into human yet? There's plenty of hot water in the   
kitchen you know..." Nabiki pointed out while gesturing at the now empty pail   
that was sitting next to Genma.  
  
This caused the boy to hung his head a bit. He turned to look at his father with  
slightly hateful look, as if considering if he should punch him or not, but then   
just turned back to the girl who had last spoken and sighed. "Well, ya' see...it   
aint that simple in my case," he began and retracted his claws back into their   
original size. "Hot water doesn't work with me, I don't know why and neither did   
the guy who worked as a guide at the springs. I don't know what I am, I doubt   
nobody does, and I don't think its something I'll be bothering myself as long as   
I doesn't start sprouting a pair of antennas from my head."  
  
"So, are there any other deformities we should know about?" the middle Tendo   
daughter ventured.  
  
"Hmm...well I guess there are the ears," Ranma replied and pulled some of the   
hair up from the right side of his head to show his pointed ears that were   
slightly longer than normal human's. "And then there's the eyes of course."  
  
"Eyes?" Nabiki muttered along with her younger sister, both of them seemingly   
only now taking notice of the rather odd golden tint the boy had in his irises,   
and after that they noticed the silt pupils too. "They're like cat's..." Nabiki   
gasped.  
  
Ranma seemed to shudder for a short instant when the last word was said but   
didn't say anything to it. "Well yeah, that's about it. It isn't so difficult to   
live like this, but it's sometimes a real pain when you can't wear any socks or   
shoes beside sandals thanks to these damn claws," he grumbled and showed one of  
his foots that had been well hidden underneath his black hakama. There were   
similar claws there on his toes and he had on his fingers, only slightly   
shorter.  
  
"Well, your problem isn't so bad," Soun smiled and patted the boy on the back.   
"I'm sure you'll find a cure on your problem in time. All you need to   
concentrate for the following weeks is to decide whom do you wish to marry."  
  
The boy levelled the man with a glare but didn't say anything, as he knew it to   
be futile. Then he turned his gaze towards Nabiki and frowned a bit, she was   
obviously the bright one in the family and if his instincts were anything to   
trust at, she would be the one whom he would be willing to bet on if he wanted   
someone's help to get out from this mess with as little damage as possible.  
  
Nabiki noticed the boy's look and nodded understandingly. "It seems that he and   
I are on the same wave length," she mentally mused to herself and let a small   
smile fall on her lips before she stood up. "Well, if this is settled, then I   
believe we should go and get some rest. It's a school day tomorrow and at least   
I need to sleep before that," she said and began to move towards the hallway,   
but not before giving her family's younger guest a meaningful look.  
  
Ranma noticed this but didn't reply in any way and just sat there, intending to   
contact the middle daughter when nobody else was watching or listening. He just   
hoped he hadn't misinterpreted the look, as while he might have agreed to the   
deal, he really didn't wish to be engaged to anyone at this point.  
  
Akane just fumed where she sat, she really didn't like the idea of allowing the   
boy to stay at _her_ home for whole two weeks, just so that he could decide whom   
he would marry. She really hoped the boy wouldn't choose her, but she knew that   
all boy's were perverts and from her experience they all wanted a girl like her,   
so with her logic his obvious choice would be of course her, and that wouldn't   
just do.  
  
"I'm not going to marry you," the girl stated firmly as she stood up and glared   
at the boy, "So keep your perverted hands and mind to yourself." And then she   
stomped out from the room and headed towards the dojo where she intended to   
break some more bricks to vent out her frustration.  
  
"Oh boy, well at least she has made up her mind about the engagement," thought   
Ranma as he watched after the girl. Of course Soun and Genma seemed to take this   
in completely different way and began to smile ridiculously with both of them   
fanning victory sings. The boy just blinked at this but didn't say anything as   
this was the point where Kasumi saw it being her cue to point out the guests to   
their room.  
  
"Come with me and I will show you to our guestroom," said the girl as she stood  
up and smoothed out her light green housewife dress that seemed to be slightly   
unflattering for a young woman like her who hadn't been even married yet. Ranma   
just nodded and went on to follow the girl, in the process picking up his   
backpack from the hallway entrance where had left it when he first came, and   
then continuing to the stairs.  
  
"And if you would like, I could prepare the furo for you if you would like,"   
Kasumi added while smiling sweetly. Ranma wasn't sure, but he was starting to   
get the feeling the girl was always like this and that she probably didn't have   
it all pieced together inside her head.  
  
"Uh, sure, if it isn't trouble or anything," the boy replied tentatively as he   
continued to follow her.  
  
The girl nodded happily and continued to lead the way to the medium sized room   
that was in the other end of the second floor. "Here you go," she said as she   
opened the door and allowed the boy to enter, "I will go and heat the water, but   
it will take some time before it is ready, so if you like you can go and use the   
dojo in the meantime if you wish."  
  
Ranma just nodded and waited for the girl to close the door and leave before he   
settled his backpack the floor. He frowned as he looked around him, it was a   
sparse room, no furniture whatsoever, only a few cabinets that had been built   
into the wall and a single window at the other end of the room that had been   
built so that it would allow the sun to shine directly into the room first thing   
the morning.  
  
But as a whole, the room was more than enough on his opinion. He hadn't intended   
to stay here for long and it was still better than sleeping outside with only   
the sleeping bag and the hard ground under his back.  
  
For a moment he considered going to the dojo to work up some sweat and went to   
set his backpack to one of the far corners of the room, but stopped abruptly.   
  
"What the...?" the boy muttered as he turned around. His eyes roamed around the   
room wildly, as if looking for something specific, but then suddenly stopped as   
the feeling he had just disappeared. "What was that?" he muttered and touched   
his chest.  
  
For a moment there had been a sudden strong pull inside his chest, as if someone   
had tried to grasp his heart and take it away, but what had been even weirder   
was that it hadn't felt unpleasant or even forceful. It reminded him more of a   
gentle tug than anything else, but was still enough to disturb him. Ranma didn't   
know enough about his new body yet, and it seemed that he was discovering new   
things about it everyday, even after he had lived with it for the past two   
months.  
  
At first he thought of going to investigate if he could locate the source of the   
disturbance, he had the strange feeling that it had been moving, whatever it   
was, but then decided against it. It wasn't worth going after something he   
didn't know and it was already getting late, not that it would have troubled him   
at all. He had discovered a few weeks back that he could see in the dark almost   
as clearly as during the day, only slightly differently.  
  
But before he could think of the matter any further, he picked up a noise from   
the door and for a moment expected to see his father but then realized that the   
scent was wrong. "Nabiki, I believe," he said before the door was even fully   
opened, and smirked when he saw the girl in question standing at the doorway   
with slightly surprised look on her face. His abilities to see, hear, and smell   
had grown quite sensitive during the time had spent in his new form and it was   
beginning to show.  
  
"My, good guess Saotome," she smiled and stepped into the room before closing   
the door behind her back. "But I didn't come here for a social call. I guess   
that if the way you behaved downstairs was anything to judge from, you're not   
too happy about this arrangement and wish to get out of it without too much of a   
fuzz, correct?"  
  
Ranma merely nodded at this and crossed his hands into his sleeves again before   
settling down to the floor. "I had considered talking to you, but not before I   
could assure myself that there would not be any eavesdroppers," the boy said and   
gestured the girl to take a seat.  
  
"Well, this is a good time if any to talk," Nabiki replied but did not move away   
from the doorway. "Do you have anything in particular in mind of how to defuse   
this situation or were you waiting for me to come up with something?"  
  
"Perhaps the later one. I was never good at plotting, but I'm willing to give   
all the help you need to pull off whatever you're planning to do to get us all   
off the hook," the boy replied honestly.  
  
Nabiki smiled at this. "At least he's honest," she thought and began to move   
closer, her eyes examining the boy before her.  
  
"Ok, so you really don't want this marriage deal, right?" she asked while   
keeping her eyes firmly locked on the boy's. Truth to be told, she wouldn't have   
minded too much to be engaged to him if anyone had asked her right now. He   
wasn't half bad looking and if he proved to have a brain on his shoulders, he   
might prove himself to be an ideal fiancé despite his few deformities.  
  
"Yeah, I don't wanna ruin any of your lives by forcing myself on you or onto one   
of your sisters," the boy replied. "As who would want to live with a freak like   
me for the rest of their lifetime?"  
  
"Don't be too harsh on yourself, Saotome," Nabiki sighed and shook her head at   
him. "You're far cry from unattractive if you wish to me to put it bluntly, but   
I can understand where you're getting at. You don't know what you are yet and it   
makes you insecure when dealing with other people and their expectations, right?"  
  
"Um, yeah, something like that," answered the boy as he tried figure out if the   
girl in front of him had just complimented him or not. "And then there's the   
fact that I'm still trying to find a cure to this damn thing and that means that   
I won't probably stay here for very long, whether I'll get engaged or not, to   
any of you."  
  
"I see," replied the middle Tendo as she began to think about the different   
possibilities of how to clear the mess her father and his friend created. It   
was, however, too early for her to decide whether he wanted to get to know the  
boy or not, and she was pretty sure neither of her sisters were interested on   
him, and thus she decided to take the easiest alternative, a time out. She   
needed time to think before she would make any kind of decision.  
  
"Let me think for a day or two, I'll try to come up with something by then. But   
don't hold your breath, I won't make any promises," she said and winked an eye   
at him.  
  
Ranma just blinked at this but didn't say anything as she began to move away.   
She didn't stop moving until she came to the door where she turned around and   
looked at him straight into the eyes, as if considering something, and then just   
closed the door without another word.  
  
"Huh, what was that all about?" the boy thought in confusion as he stood up and   
for a moment considered asking about it, but then decided it was just another   
thing about girls he would never understand and let the mater drop.  
  
He looked around him and realized that there was probably still plenty of time   
before the furo was ready and decided to go to the dojo as he had originally   
intended. And so, without any further ado, he went on and left the room in his   
search for the desired area of the household.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
In the meantime, there was a small three headed group of girls walking down the   
darkening streets of Nerima, not too far from the Tendo home. All them were   
dressed casually, plain long sleeved shirts and knee height skirts, and it was   
obvious that they weren't trying to stand out in a crowd.  
  
They had just left from one of their mutual friend's home and were having fun as   
they reviewed what had happened during their stay in there. Well, everybody   
except the one with the long black hair who was constantly glancing over her   
shoulder, but not looking anything in particular, tough.  
  
"Kagome-chan, is something wrong?" asked one of her friends, she had a short   
brown bowl cut hair and dark blue clothes. "You've been acting bit distracted   
all evening."  
  
"It's nothing," Kagome assured with a smile that wasn't very convincing. "I'm   
all right."  
  
"We're not buying that Kagome, spit it out. You can tell your friends, now can't   
you?" asked the other girl who was now trailing between the two others, her hair   
was black also but liked to keep in a twin ponytails that cascaded to the middle   
of her back.  
  
"I said it's nothing," Kagome replied once more, this time bit more forcefully.   
"I just had this strange feeling there was something strong...and dark somewhere   
near here," she muttered to herself, but enough loud to make her friends hear it.  
  
"Oooh, is our little Kagome-chan becoming a spiritualist?" asked one of her   
friends with a mock tone. "Maybe you've been living too long near that old   
shrine your grandfather has been holding up. You better be careful if you keep   
this up, you'll end up being an old maid before you even turn into thirty."  
  
"Hey, that's not funny!" shouted the black haired girl and gave chase to her two   
giggling friends. "Get back here and I'll show you who's an old maid!"  
  
"Nyah, nyah, you must catch us first!" the two other girls taunted while staying   
few feet from Kagome's reach.  
  
Soon they all forgot all about the event and let it disappear into their   
memories as if it had never happened...  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Spar?" Ranma muttered dumbly while looking at the youngest Tendo daughter whom   
he had caught in the middle of breaking a stack of bricks. A large pile of their   
broken predecessors was lying in a large pile right next to it.  
  
"Yes, weren't you supposed to have been training for ten years or something,"   
Akane replied with slightly annoyed tone. "Dad told us that you went all the way   
to China and all, don't you think you could show me what you've learned?" she   
continued.  
  
Akane was getting annoyed with the boy, or rather with the way he behaved. He   
wasn't acting like any other boy she had come in contact outside her school and   
it was ticking her off, and to add gasoline into the fire, it also seemed that   
the boy wasn't considering her to be even worth his time.  
  
"Naw, you'd just get hurt," the boy replied calmly as he shook his head and   
began to move away. He didn't wish to fight with her since he knew that she   
wasn't even close to his level, or the level where he had been when he had still   
been completely human.  
  
"What?!" the long haired girl exclaimed and rushed after the boy, intending to   
knock some respect into his thick skull. "You think you're so much better than   
me?"  
  
The boy didn't say anything at first, and seemed to be just walking away, but in   
reality he was well aware of Akane's position and turned around just when she   
was about to hit him into the head and grabbed her wrist before she could strike   
him. "No, I know I am," he replied calmly as ever and let the girl go, but   
didn't move an inch from where he stood.  
  
"Why you..." Akane growled, her hands clenching tightly at her sides with the   
familiar red haze starting to build up inside her mind. "If you're so sure, then   
why don't you prove it? Or are you scared that I might prove you wrong?" Her   
tone was slightly smug and taunting, she was dying to beat up this up-star boy.  
  
Ranma frowned, he had not intended to fight the girl with his previous   
experience in the amazon village still deeply imprinted on his mind, but this   
one was really starting to crawl under his skin. "Fine, lets see what you got,"   
he said and walked past the girl and into the middle of the large tatami that   
covered most of the dojo's floor.  
  
Akane blinked at the boy's behaviour at first, not so sure anymore if she had   
made the right decision, but quickly let it slide and went after the boy to take   
her place on the mat. As after all, she was the best there was in Nerima, so   
there was nothing for her to worry about, right?  
  
Ranma made a small formal bow to his opponent and took his position, "We'll   
start when you give the signal."   
  
Akane nodded and gave her own curt bow to him and prepared herself. "Now!" she   
shouted not too long after she had settled down, hoping to catch the boy with   
surprise, he had been standing rather lazily, and thus she was rather surprised   
to see him stepping away from her fast snap kick with almost casual air to him.  
  
Then she came down with a quick follow up roundhouse kick that usually worked on   
all those stupid boys at her school, but again she felt nothing but air against   
her foot. "What?" she mentally gasped and watched with wide eyes at the boy who   
was just standing there with a bored look on his face, his right hand being busy   
digging his ear.  
  
"Is that the best you can do?" the boy asked as he looked at the girl through   
his narrowed eyes. "I don't have time for beginners, spar with my old man if you   
wish to take on someone you can at least begin to start comparing yourself to."  
  
"What?! Are you telling me I'm not good enough for you, is that it?!" the girl   
screamed angrily and tried to lash at the boy with careless haymaker that missed   
its target with wide margin.  
  
"Slow, poorly coordinated, telegraphing moves, poor control over emotions..."   
the boy listed while counting his fingers. Then he suddenly stopped and moved to   
block the girl's next attempt to knock him down with a high kick, swiftly   
snaring her ankle before she could pull it back.  
  
"Sorry, I was wrong about you," he said calmly as he stared at the stupefied   
looking girl, "You're not a beginner. You're a novice at best, if even that."  
  
"What? How dare you?!" the girl screeched as she tried to tear her leg off from   
his grip, but quickly found it to be too firm for her to escape. "Damn you! Let   
go of me you jerk!!"  
  
"Ok," the boy replied while shrugging his shoulders, promptly letting the girl   
go much to her surprise and thus leaving her poorly balanced.  
  
By the time her rear hit the floor, Akane had filled her mind with nothing but  
utter humiliation, and that was what triggered her built up rage. "You stupid   
perverted jerk! I'll get you for that!!" she screamed as she stood up and once   
more attacked the boy whom she so confidently believed to be in the area of her   
experience and skill. Unfortunately it wasn't so.  
  
By simply leaning back Ranma had avoided the roundhouse kick that he had seen a   
mile away, and then by stepping back he dodged the wide leg sweep he could have   
avoided in his sleep. He knew, he had once done it. "Come on, let's stop this   
before you get hurt," Ranma pleaded, but the smirk on his face worked only to   
ruin his sincerity.  
  
"Just shut up and die!" the girl cried angrily and lashed with yet another kick   
that could have easily destroyed a concrete wall, but this time it met nothing   
but air while her other leg was neatly swept from underneath her, promptly   
sending her on her back with loud thud.  
  
Ranma had to fight back the urge to snicker when he saw the girl's face when she   
just laid there on her back with her eyes staring at the ceiling, the expression   
was what could be described only as utter surprised.   
  
"Hey, now look here. I'm sure you've probably noticed it by now, but there's now   
way you can defeat me, so let's just stop it here, ok?" he said and even offered   
a hand for her. But instead of accepting it she angrily swat it aside and almost   
jumped on him.  
  
"Stop dodging and fight!" the girl screamed angrily and threw another wild punch   
at her opponent who almost casually swat it aside with a backhand slap to her   
wrist.  
  
"Why? I might break something," retorted the boy as he parried another punch. He   
wasn't moving anymore, just standing there with lazy look on his face as he   
continued to redirect her strikes as if he were swatting flies. In reality,   
Ranma was pretty impressed with the strength the girl had, only that amazon girl   
he had fought back in the village came to the same par as Akane.  
  
"Damn you! Damn you!" Akane kept repeating as she tried to hammer the impudent   
boy the ground. She couldn't understand what she was doing wrong, it was like   
she was trying to grasp her own shadow every time she attacked.  
  
Ranma saw that this 'spar' was not leading anywhere, and soon came down with the   
decision that perhaps it would be fore the best if he gave the girl what she   
needed and ended the match.  
  
In that fracture of a second that Ranma moved, all that Akane could see was all   
a blur. She never knew how he had done it, but the next thing she knew to be   
happening to her, was the feeling of someone grabbing her right hand wrist and   
then the tremendous pull that made her fly of her feet and get slammed to the   
tatami like a puppet with its strings cut off.  
  
Without wasting a moment, Ranma had thrown the girl face down to the mat and now   
had her both arms behind her back with he himself sitting on top of them with   
his both hands firmly around her wrists. "Do you yield?" he asked, not even a   
hint of emotion in his voice. He was tired of playing and he didn't wish to   
prolong this event any further.  
  
"No I won't! And let go of me you pervert!!" Akane screamed from the floor as  
she tried to squirm out from his grasp, but finding it quite futile in a few   
moments as she realized that her both arms were quite firmly locked in place and   
all that she could really do was kick her feet on the floor and act like a   
complete retard.  
  
"You lost, accept it Akane," said the boy as he increased the pressure he was   
putting on the girl's back. "You wanted me to fight back and so I did, here's   
the result. Are you happy now?"  
  
"Shut up! I haven't lost yet!" the girl screamed angrily and continued to   
struggle against his hold on her.  
  
A deep frown came down on Ranma's face as he looked at the girl's back, and for   
a moment he had to resist the urge to just punch her unconscious, but then   
decided against it. It had begun to bother him lately that he no longer felt as   
much apprehension in using violence as he had in the past, and he was getting   
worried it had something to do with his new body.  
  
"Fine, then lets do it the hard way," replied the boy and moved Akane's hands so   
that he could keep them locked in place with one hand, and then proceeded to   
pull off her gi belt.  
  
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing you pervert!?" the girl screamed   
and increased her struggles when she felt the boy slip his hand underneath her   
waist and pull her belt off.  
  
Without saying anything the boy pulled up her wrists, tied the belt around them,   
and then pulled each of her ankles up so that he could do the same to them, thus   
resulting a one reverse-hogtied girl. "There," he said as he stood up and dusted   
off his hands. "I hope you've learned your lesson."  
  
"What? Hey, untie me damn it!" Akane screamed from her undignified position.   
"Don't leave me like this you pervert!!"  
  
"Whatever," was all that Ranma said as he casually walked away from the scene.   
He made sure to close the door as he left, he didn't wish to give the girl a   
cold with the way she was bound on the floor, and also to silence the row of   
curses that she was throwing after him.  
  
"She really needs to start learning how to control that temper of hers," he   
thought tiredly and moved away form the dojo, intending to go and see whether   
the bath was ready now.  
  
From the second floor window, one that had a clear view to the dojo, Nabiki was   
looking oddly at the boy and the curses she had been hearing for a moment.  
"Hmm...I better go and check that nothing bad happened," she mused to herself   
and stopped doing her evening preparations.  
  
In the stairway she met Ranma and the boy just nodded at her and pointed his   
thumb towards the dojo. "Don't worry, I didn't hurt her, just maybe her pride,   
but she'll get over it. Tough, I think she'd appreciate it if you'd let her go,   
I won't do it since she would just go try to bite my head off."  
  
Nabiki looked at the boy bit oddly but then as he just moved up into the second   
floor and obviously towards the furo, she too decided to move on and go and see   
what he had done to her sister to make her curse so loud. On her way she met   
Kasumi, who had also heard the rather improper choice of words that Akane had   
used to describe Ranma.  
  
"Oh my, I wonder what is wrong with her," the eldest Tendo daughter said with   
her hand in front of her mouth and a worried look on her face.  
  
"Don't worry sis, I'll go and check up on her," Nabiki assured and put on her   
slippers that had been standing next to the entrance way that lead from the main   
building to the dojo, and quickly moved towards the source of the steady stream   
of cursing that her little sister was still throwing.  
  
What she saw was more than what she could take, and in a matter of moments she   
was holding her sides with loud laughter coming from her throat. "Bwahahahaaa!!"  
  
"Damn it sis! This isn't funny! Untie me so that I can go and beat that   
perverted freak!!" Akane screamed from the floor where she was still lying, her   
hands and legs firmly tied behind her back.  
  
"I doubt that's a good idea Akane, if he was able to do this to you now, what   
makes you think you'd do any better on the next try?" Nabiki retorted with a   
tired, if not a bit amused tone. "Really Akane, you heard what daddy said.   
Ranma's father has been training him from ever since he could walk and they've   
been visiting places we haven't probably even heard of, so did you really think   
you were better than him?"  
  
At first Akane was about say something, but then wisely decided shut herself up  
about it and save her breath. She was positive she would get another chance with   
the boy later.  
  
Nabiki smiled and nodded at this. Then moved in to remove the simple and yet   
firm knot that Ranma had made to bound her little sister the way he had. "I have   
to admit that the boy does at least have a sense of humour," she thought to   
herself and fought down the urge to laugh again.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
In the furo...  
  
It felt like heaven to Ranma when he fully submerged into the hot water and let  
it soothe his skin and muscles. It had been ages since he last had a bath and it   
was a small miracle that he hadn't started to reek too badly yet.  
  
"Aaah, now this is something I could get used to," he mused to himself as he   
relaxed his head across the small pool's edge. But then his blissful look turned   
into more serious as he raised his hand up to meet his eyes, his eyes once more   
focusing into the claws that he had become so familiar with in the past weeks.  
  
They didn't bother him as much as they had in the beginning, he never wore  
gloves so it wasn't much of a loss on his opinion and people did not tend to   
notice them as long as he kept his hands well hidden inside his sleeves. But   
that wasn't exactly the main issue, no.  
  
What had begun to bother Ranma as a whole, not just the claws, was his current   
form. He didn't know what he was now and that he the things wasn't supposed to   
be the way they were, and yet he was becoming more and more comfortable with his   
new form with each passing day...no, it wasn't just that. He was becoming more   
than comfortable with his form; he had started to like it.  
  
"This could become a problem," he thought to himself and turned his head a bit   
to see his own reflection from the surface of the slightly rippling water he sat   
in. "This isn't my body. This isn't what I was born to be. So why am I not   
bothered by it anymore?" he asked himself, and after a moment of silence frowned   
as he wasn't hearing any answers.  
  
While theoretically he wouldn't have minded his current situation, better to be   
comfortable with what he was if he were to spend the rest of his life it than   
hate it to the end of days, but he wouldn't have been offended had he known more   
about what he was. But where could he possibly find answers?  
  
The area around the Jusenkyo had come out dry; there was nothing there. No   
temples, no caves, no other magical springs, or any of the same categories. He   
didn't even know what to look for.  
  
It frustrated to him no end to constantly run into a wall and not find a way   
out. To him it felt like he'd been trapped inside a giant maze that changed its   
shape every time he turned around the next corner, and with the prize being   
something he couldn't even recognize.  
  
"I hate my life..." he muttered once more. "I've said that quite a lot lately,   
haven't I?" the boy chuckled as he turned his gaze once more to the ceiling and   
sighed.   
  
"Oh well, it's not like things will get better on their own." He finally   
concluded and decided he had enough of bathing and stood up to go and prepare   
himself for the night, as if his instincts were right, things would heat up   
tomorrow.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Somewhere in Tokyo, two shadowy figures passed through the night, unseen by the   
pedestrians that were unaware of the passing pair of foreigners that were using   
the rooftops to speed up their travelling.  
  
The other was a small; almost troll like figure with long gnarled looking staff   
and long hair that flowed behind it as it leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Behind   
it came a larger figure, definitely a girl if the silhouette of her shadow was   
anything to judge from.  
  
"Great grandmother," the later whispered loudly, in Chinese, to the smaller   
figure that stopped moving for a moment.  
  
"What is it child?" asked the raspy, old voice that was barely audible.  
  
The girl landed next to the troll like figure and knelt a bit as she spoke, "Are   
you sure we will find my husband here? We have not seen a single trace of him   
after he left the village." She sounded like she was starting to grow bit   
desperate.  
  
"Do not worry, my child, we will find your wayward husband in no time," assured   
the old crone. "The reason why we haven't found him yet is that we had to wait   
full three days for you to recover, remember?"  
  
"Aiya! I remember, you don't need to remind me of that," the girl whined   
pathetically and seemed to rub her belly for a moment. "Husband is very strong,   
are you sure we can bring him back to the village?"  
  
"Do not worry of that now, first we must find him, and then you must make him   
officially your husband or this would become the first case in our three   
thousand years of history where a female amazon lost a husband because she was   
too busy being unconscious to give him the kiss of marriage," the old woman   
continued, growing bit agitated at the end. "It would embarrass your mother   
should you fail!" she continued bit hotly but then relaxed as she sighed heavily   
and turned her gaze towards the heavens and made some warding signs, "Bless your   
soul Xian-Fei."  
  
"I won't fail!" the girl almost shouted and then quieted down as she noticed   
that the people down the streets were beginning to look around them.  
  
The old crone nodded approvingly, "Good, you'd better not, or I might go with my   
original plan and marry you to that blind fool, Mut Zu." And with that said she   
turned around and prepared to continue their journey. "Now come, we still have   
some travelling to do, but I'm sure we will find son-in-law by tomorrow."  
  
"How can you be so sure?" asked the girl as she took position beside her great   
grandmother.  
  
"Heh, the boy's aura has grown much stronger than what it had been when we first   
saw him, now he is like a glowing beacon to those who can read peoples' auras,"   
answered the older woman and then wordlessly jumped into the night once more.  
  
"Aiya, wait for me!" the girl gasped and did her best to follow the older   
woman's lead.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Where I am now?!" rang the familiar and angry voice of certain Ryoga Hibiki who   
was, once again, terminally lost with no idea of where he was and how to get   
where he wanted, where ever it was then.  
  
"Damn it," the boy shouted angrily and stompped his foot on the road he was   
standing on, causing several cracks to be formed there. "This all your fault   
Ranma!!" he roared with his fist being clenched tightly towards the dark skies.  
  
"Huh? When did the clouds come..." he muttered in confusion, but then realized   
that he was about to get wet soon if he didn't act quickly. "Ack! Must get the   
umbrella before its-bweeee..."  
  
Now instead of one angry boy with strangely yellow bandana with black spots   
standing in the middle of the road, there was a small angry pink little female   
piglet with the very same bandana tied around its neck, a pile of clothes lying   
next to it, a very large backpack and a unopened red bamboo umbrella.  
  
"BWEEEEE!!" it squealed angrily towards the heavens, blaming whoever it was   
blaming for the misfortune he had suffered.  
  
"I'll get you for this Saotome!! You'll pay for the hell I've seen!" the little   
piglet thought angrily, too busy to notice the black limousine that had stopped   
right next to him or the little girl with long dark hair that was looking at it   
with look of utter adoration shining from her eyes.  
  
Only when it heard the diabolically cute voice of the girl in question, did he   
have the sense to start running. "Charlotte!" the girl squealed with delight as   
she gave chase to the little animal, in hopes of catching it and placing it   
among its kind in her collection.  
  
Yes, Azusa Shiratori had found yet another new cute thing that did not belong to   
her but what she still wanted to own and would take as her property no matter   
the cost.  
  
"Aaaaargh! This is all your fault Ranma!!" the little piglet thought as it ran   
for its life.  
  
+++++++++++++++++++  
End of chapter one  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
Next chapter: "Shampoo find airen!" and "Ranma, prepare to die!!"  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
Whew, I was on a row when I wrote this thing. Don't know how long it will take   
me to write the next chapter but I'll be working on it as soon as I can. I've   
got a job, so it's understandable if I don't have much time for writing. The   
fact that I'm also one of the head members of a certain small anime otaku club   
doesn't ease my burdens one bit either...  
  
Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter and while I must admit it was trailing   
pretty much behind the cannon version of Ranma1/2, but I assure you that in the   
next chapter things will go into a whole different direction.  
  
And thank you everybody for your support, I appreciate all comments and   
suggestions you might have, but the later ones I'd like to have into my email   
address rather on the review post tough, not that it matters much, but   
still...it's a principle, not a rule. :P  
  
This version of this chapter is the first and it may hold some great errors to   
it, much due the reason that I wrote this thing mostly half asleep. So please,   
if you find any, do not hesitate to report them to me. I'll try to find and fix   
them on my own, but I could use some help.  
  
Oh, and if anyone's interested being my pre-reader, do send me an email, you'll  
find the address in the beginning of this chapter. I'll contact you as soon as   
I can, but don't go expecting the next chapter 'too' soon...  
  
-Goenitz  
  
Special thanks go for Bjorn Ivar, for his opinion on the fight scene in the  
prologue, I'll try to make them bit better in the future, and to Necratoid for   
pointing out the few mistakes. No mistake is too small to be fixed people; I'm   
trying to make as perfectly written story here as I can, so don't hesitate to   
point out the errors or illogical phrases I might have made. English was never   
my strong point, but as I said, I'm working on it.  
  
Side note: I'm trying to start writing another fanfic at this one's side. It's a   
NGE related and is called as the 'Through the Eyes of the Devil', where Shinji   
is very much different from the original, both in appearance as in his   
personality. I hope I can get it started before the next chapter of 'When Fates   
Collide'...but I'm not making any promises! 


	3. Rush Hours

Author: Leopold Goenitz  
Email: Leopold_Goenitz@hotmail.com  
  
Author notes: I'd like to thank you all who have posted your reviews   
regarding this story of mine. I'm not sure if you realize how much it   
means to me to see that people actually read what I write and even liking   
it. I've always thought I was unimaginative and unfit to write anything   
even remotely decent...but I guess I was wrong. Thanks.  
  
PS: Sorry for the delay, but first I had to rewrite this thing for five times,   
then my hard drive somehow misplaced the final version of this chapter   
before I could release it, and so I had to rewrite it completely...  
  
Also, as on the behalf of few readers request, I'll be keeping Shampoo,   
Cologne, and Mousse's names in their original forms after this chapter,   
instead of using variations like Xian Pu and such. This is to avoid any   
headaches I might get from them and from the future readers. Sorry if   
this is inconvenience to some of you.  
  
Disclaimer: "The government denies the existence of this file, what you   
see does not exist. What you're reading is just a figment of your   
imagination..."  
  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
(Ranma 1/2 - Alternative universe multicrossover fanfic story)   
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
When Fates Collide  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +   
Chapter 2 - Rush Hours  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
The sun was rising and the people of Tokyo were all slowly waking up into   
their daily activities. To some it meant eating breakfast and going to work,   
school, or some things like that. Not many could claim that they started   
their day by being thrown out from a second story window.  
  
Ranma could.  
  
"Hey! What the hell do you think yer doing old man?!" the boy shouted   
indignantly as he shifted his body into proper landing position, touching   
the ground with his stance making him resemble a cat ready to pounce on   
its prey. He had been lucky that he had awoken when his father first   
pulled him off the floor before he threw him out from the window,   
otherwise he might have landed quite differently.  
  
"Its time for training boy," shouted the balding man from the window   
where Ranma had been thrown through. He quickly climbed through the   
opening himself and followed his son down to the backyard with surprising   
dexterity. "You've become too slack lately and I see it as my duty to make   
sure you stay fit!" he shouted as he pointed his son with a finger before   
taking his own more traditional stance.  
  
Ranma snorted through his nose and stood up while looking at his father   
through his narrowed eyes. "Look, pop, you haven't been able to beat me   
ever since we took up these bloody curses. What makes you think that   
you could do it now?"  
  
"Silence, foolish boy!" Genma bellowed and tried to tag his son with a   
swift flying kick, but quickly found his foot kicking nothing but air. "Wha-?!"  
  
"I warned you old man," the boy said while appearing directly behind his   
father's back. "And while I don't practically care whether you'll learn your   
lesson or not, I'm going to pound it into your skull once more..."  
  
Genma snarled angrily at his son's uppity and tried to backhand the   
obnoxious boy, but before he could come even close, his wrist had been   
caught and was given a rather strong squeeze that was preventing his   
circulation into that particular hand.  
  
"This grows boring," Ranma commented and before his father could try   
any other foolish act, he twisted the arm he was holding, violently, and in   
the process made the heavier man to flip off his feet and slam to the   
ground with pained look on his face. "Had enough yet?"  
  
"...respect your elders..." Genma muttered as he tried to shake the sudden   
dizziness out from his head. There was no proof whether he simply was   
too proud, or too stupid to admit that his son's claim was true, but it was   
certain that he wouldn't probably be able to say it even if his life   
depended on it.  
  
"Have it your way then," the boy sighed and promptly lifted the older man   
from the ground by grabbing his collar and belt. "Let's just end this   
stupidity!" he shouted and quickly threw his father towards the koi pond   
before the fool could clear his head enough to start struggling.  
  
The pond gave a satisfactory splash as the fat man submerged   
underneath its surface, with large mass of white and black fur sprouting   
from its center only moment later.  
  
"Insolent son!" said the small wooden sing Genma had been able to whip   
out from somewhere again as he slowly climbed back up from the pond.  
  
"Yeah, yeah...whatever," Ranma sighed and waved his hands in casual   
manner before taking more serious stance this time. While he had been   
throwing his father around so far, he knew that the old man could pull out   
some nasty surprises if he wanted and thus made him an adversary that   
should not be underestimated at any point.  
  
And so the two charged and met in mid air with both trading blows like   
there would be no tomorrow...  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
It had been early in the morning when the youngest Tendo daughter had   
left for her daily morning jogs, she said they helped her to think. But   
today it didn't quite work the way it should have.  
  
Ranma, the obnoxious perverted boy that she had met yesterday, just   
wouldn't leave her mind alone, no matter how hard or how far she ran, he   
would always be there, waiting at her home. 'Her' home!  
  
"I'll get back at that bastard tonight!" she mentally swore to herself while   
trying to stay confident that she could actually do it. It had taken quite an   
effort from her to convince herself that the boy had simply caught her   
with surprise and that she hadn't been ready when he attacked her, but   
she had done it. As how else the boy could have beaten her, right?  
  
That was when her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something   
slamming against a concrete wall and the sudden bulging of the wall right   
next to her, the concrete crumbling off due the sudden blow that had   
occurred on the other side. "I warned you old man! I'm getting tired of   
your crap and I want it to end!" came annoyingly familiar voice from the   
other side of the wall.  
  
"Ranma..." the girl muttered darkly and quickly jogged through the front   
gates to see what had happened.  
  
Leaning against the wall, a halo of an impact crater decorating his upside   
down standing body, was Genma, in his panda form. It was quite apparent   
that he was in great pain with the way his teeth kept clenching together.  
  
"Get real old man, you should start to realize that you stand no chances   
against me," spoke the boy across the backyard, dusting off his hands on   
his slightly grained hakama pants that he had kept on during his sleep.   
His robe top was off, thus leaving his torso quite clearly into the view and   
thanks to the tight black sleeveless t-shirt he was wearing his well   
muscled torso was almost like a needle into the eye for the youngest   
Tendo.  
  
"..." was all that Akane could get out from her mouth as she quickly   
averted her eyes from his torso, her face blushing red, and quickly dashed   
into the house. "I...I can't believe that... that... PERVERT!" she mentally   
screamed as she continued to run up stairs and straight into the bathroom   
where she intended to take a good, long cold shower to clear out her   
thoughts.  
  
She never saw her older sister, Nabiki, smirking at her rushing form in the   
hallway. "I wonder if this has anything to do with our young guest..." she   
spoke silently to herself and began to make way to the first floor,   
intending to find out what had made her sister blush so badly.  
  
Her answer came in the form of her family's younger guest who's current   
attire quickly made her mind wander in the area she rarely let it go into,   
but quickly shook it off and removed her eyes from his chest area to look   
him into the pair of cat-like eyes. Her cheeks were slightly red.  
  
"Huh? Something wrong?" Ranma asked as he caught the middle Tendo   
daughter staring at him and then shake her head before laughing   
nervously and waving her hands.  
  
"Oh nothing, nothing at all, I'm just fine," the girl babbled almost   
nervously and quickly walked past the boy and towards the kitchen where   
she hoped to find something to calm down her nerves.  
  
Ranma blinked at her behaviour but quickly shrugged it off. "Girls..." he   
muttered and climbed up the stairs to the second floor to get his Chinese   
robes, as he couldn't go anywhere outside the building without them   
unless he wanted to be caught in the form he was.  
  
But just when he was about to open the door into the guestroom he and   
his father shared, the familiar tingle from last night came back to him,   
much weaker than before, but still. It was like a pull, or a tug to certain   
direction. He wasn't even sure what it was, nor whether it was good or   
bad, all he knew about it was that it was definitely beckoning him.  
  
"What is this..." he mumbled but stopped when the feeling suddenly   
disappeared again. "Just what the hell was that?" he wondered out loud,   
not moving for several moments until he remembered what he had come   
there for. "Oh yeah, the robes..." he muttered and went into the room, his   
mind putting aside the strange sensation for time being...  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
Across the town...  
  
Inside a certain small room that was located inside a medium sized   
private home next to an old and traditional looking shrine, just over the   
Juuban and Nerima district border, there was a young girl sleeping   
contently with a blissful smile on her face. Her long black hair spreading in   
a wide halo around her head with the bed sheets all tangled up in a mess   
around of her body.  
  
This scene would have remained unchanged if it hadn't been for the sound   
of someone running across a boarded floor just behind the wall. Then   
suddenly the door into the room burst open with small young boy, no   
older than probably nine or ten, with short black hair rushed into room   
and to the older girl's side.  
  
"Onee-chan! Onee-chan!! Wake up, mom told that you'll need to get up   
now!" the boy shouted while shaking the girl's shoulder.  
  
"Huh...? Umm...go away, lemme sleep..." the girl mumbled and turned on   
to her side, leaving the small boy glare at her back.  
  
"Onee-chan, today's Monday," the boy said bit angrily, obviously trying to   
hint something.  
  
In response the boy's sister just grabbed the pillow and folded it around   
her head while mumbling her reply, "...ummumm...so what?...just leave me   
alone Sota...I wanna sleep..."  
  
"Sleep? It's school day Kagome-chan! You'll be late if you don't get up   
right now and get yourself ready!" the boy shouted and forcefully turned   
his sister on her back again.  
  
"...School?" the girl mumbled as if trying to connect the particular word to   
something, her mouth working at the word as if trying to taste it, but then   
her eyes blew wide open when it suddenly became clear to her. "School?!!"   
she screamed and shot up from her bed while grabbing her alarm clock   
that she had seemingly forgotten to set.   
  
"Oh god, I'm going to be late from my English test!" she gasped before   
jumping out from the bed and rushing out from the room and into the   
bathroom.  
  
The boy shook his head and sighed tiredly as he exited the room, giving a   
short glance towards the bathroom door where he knew his big sister to   
be getting ready for her day. He never understood why girls were so picky   
about their looks and believed that he probably never would, and just let   
the matter drop as he began to descend the stairs and into the kitchen   
where his mother had already prepared the breakfast.  
  
"Hi mom," Sota greeted the slightly over middle-aged woman with short   
dark brown hair and gentle smile on her face. "I woke her up just like you   
told me, but I'm not sure how long it'll be until she can actually get down   
here."  
  
His mother nodded and smiled at him. Then she turned her eyes up to the   
ceiling with slightly tired sigh passing through her lips. "Sometimes that   
girl makes me wonder..." she muttered quietly to herself, but then just   
shook her head and smiled.   
  
Sota looked at her with slightly puzzled look on his face, but then ignored   
in the favour of the food that was laid on his plate.  
  
Not too long after that there was a sound of someone rushing in the   
second floor, the sound some incoherent muttering that was accompanied   
by various shuffling sounds, and then the sound of running feet coming   
down the stairs.  
  
"I'm going to be so late!" Kagome repeated to herself for the hundredth   
time today as she rushed to the kitchen table within her school uniform   
that was consisted of white sailor shirt with dark green collar and similarly   
coloured skirt that was ended slightly above the knees with white line   
running horizontally near the edge of the hem.   
  
"Please just give me my bento and I will get going right away," she said to   
her mother and without missing a beat grabbed the small box, with light   
blue wrappings around it, that her mother had been already holding for   
her when she first came down the stairs.  
  
Sota sighed as he watched silently how his sister dashed through the   
room and towards the front door. "I wonder if I'll turn out to be the same   
when I get to be as old as she is," he muttered and turned back to his   
food. Kagome's fifteenth birthday was tomorrow and it made him slightly   
uneasy to think the fact that the older she came, the less time she   
seemed to have.  
  
"I hope I'll never become a grownup," the boy thought and resumed his   
eating.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"School?" Ranma repeated the word his father had just said to him,   
looking at the serious looking man before him, or as serious as he could   
look considering that he was a complete idiot. "Are you nuts? People   
would notice me if I went into a public place like that!"  
  
"Son, now look here," the bald man began calmly while crossing his arms   
firmly across his chest. "You're going to school and that's final. As how   
else do you think you could even hope to get to know your fiancées? Only   
one here is Kasumi," he said and pointed towards the kitchen where the   
mentioned girl poke her head through the doorway with that seemingly   
ever present cheerful smile on her face.  
  
"Get to know my fiancées?" Ranma repeated again, "Pop, that place is a   
school, a place with lots of people stacked tightly into tiny rooms, with   
everybody extremely close to each other!" Then he almost considered   
lunging over the table and stuff the small school bag his father had just   
given him into the old man's throat, but was satisfied to just slam it on  
the table.   
  
"While I might able to hide my features when were walking in the public,  
but it's a whole different story when I'm forced to just sit around and be   
stared by a bunch of students! I'd be discovered by the end of the lunch   
break!"  
  
Genma frowned admonishingly at his son, the boy's obvious point not   
making through his thick skull. "Don't raise your voice to me boy! You'll   
go to school and..." his phrase was left unsaid as his head was suddenly   
thrown back, the last image in his memory being someone's heel being   
introduced to his face.  
  
"Oyaji no baka!" the boy ranted at his father after settling down his foot   
on the floor again. "I might be stupid at times, but not _that_ stupid!"  
  
This was the point where Nabiki decided to make her presence known, she   
had gone upstairs to get her school bag after having finished with the   
breakfast and was now standing behind the upset looking Ranma. "What   
was that all about?" she asked.  
  
The boy snorted as he turned to look at her and then turned back to look   
at his father's prone form across the room, the fat fool's head had made a   
small crack on the wall. "My old man had seen it as a great idea to sing   
me to the same school as you and your sister, but after our little   
'discussion', I'm sure he sees that it wasn't such a good idea after all."   
There was a rather disturbing looking smirk on the boy's face, one that   
revealed that his fangs were quite distinctively pronounced.  
  
Nabiki quirked an eyebrow at this but left her thoughts unsaid after   
recalling the last night's events. She made a mental note not to mention   
that she had agreed to help his father to sing Ranma to their school last   
night. The girl had been eager to find out the entertainment value he   
might have brought up to the recently boring school, but after seeing how   
the boy had expressed his opinion about it to his father, she decided that   
perhaps it would be for the best if she too just dropped the issue and let   
the school board know that he wasn't coming after all.  
  
"Oh well, I still need to go to school and so does my sister," the older girl   
shrugged and moved towards the hallway that would lead her lead to the   
main entrance. "Just don't get into trouble while we're gone, ok?" she said   
with small wink before disappearing behind the corner.  
  
"Yeah, yeah..." Ranma nodded waved his hand at her as he moved   
towards the open doorway that would allow him to step on the veranda.   
He sat down on it with his hands and legs crossed, his thoughts   
concentrated on the strange pull he had encountered twice already right   
after arriving into this household.  
  
There was nothing else in the world that bugged Ranma more than not   
knowing something, the nature of his curse included. A human he wasn't,   
of that much he was certain, but neither was he any animal like his father,   
not entirely at least. Then what was he? A some sort of monster? Demon   
perhaps?  
  
"No, better not go there..." the boy shook his head to clear his mind of   
such thoughts. He didn't want to consider the possibilities and allowing   
them to wrack his nerves as long as he could not find the correct answers.   
But no matter how much he tried, there was always a small part of his   
mind that was constantly mulling over the matter, he wanted it or not.  
  
Sighing deeply the boy raised his vision from his lap and looked upon the   
serene backyard of the Tendo household, ignoring the depression his   
father had made into the wall after he had thrown the fat fool into it this   
morning.   
  
He felt bored and he wanted to have something to do. While he had been   
travelling with his father he had never felt the urge to actually do   
something, Genma had always had some kata or new technique for his   
son to keep himself busy with, but not anymore, now things had changed.   
Drastically.  
  
His father had very little to offer to him the ways things were going. The   
old man could hardly keep up with him when he went full out and as far as   
he had seen his father was not going to improve this situation anytime   
soon. And so, he needed something to do to keep the boredom away.  
  
He looked up over the walls and frowned. He hardly knew the   
neighbourhood; perhaps it would be a good idea to get to know it a bit   
better. "Yeah, that'd be a good idea," he thought and stood up.  
  
Quickly dashing up to the wall, the boy jumped and vaulted over the wall   
before continuing from there with a massive leap that carried him more   
than thirty feet into the air and fifty in length, and thus allowing him to   
cross over the street and land on top of the small private home across the   
Tendos.  
  
The boy smirked back at his performance, clearly satisfied with it, and   
then continued to bound over to the next rooftop and then again to the   
next, repeating this for countless times as he went on with his sightseeing   
around the town, not looking for anything particular.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
A little bit to the west, approximately a few hundred miles or so...  
  
There was a small rowing boat that was slowly making its way across the   
China Sea. It had a single passenger, a young boy with long black hair,   
white robes, baggy pants, and some seriously thick eyeglasses that were   
obscuring his eyes completely when viewed from the other side.  
  
The boy suddenly reared his head back and yelled in Chinese, "Xian Pu!   
I'm coming for you, just you wait! I will not let you fall into the hands of   
that outsider coward!"  
  
Then a large passenger ship came through and rammed the boy's boat   
into smithereens without stopping to notice what had happened.   
"AAAARGH! This has to be someone's fauuuuult!!" the boy screamed   
before he fell underneath the waves.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"I must get out! I must get out!" screamed the voice inside Ryoga's head   
as he rushed out from the small broken metal gage where the little   
kleptomaniac girl from last night had locked him. He was still in his   
female pig form, a cute little pink piglet with tiny legs that wiggled   
desperately as she tried to escape from the large house.  
  
Her greatest worry next to escaping was the collar she was wearing with   
small golden name pad hanging from it. The word 'Charlotte' was   
imprinted onto the name pad with small rose like figurations carved   
around it. But as far as she was concerned her 'owner' could keep the   
damn collar, she just wanted to get away from thus madhouse. The last   
night's events inside the girl's room had disturbed his mind to the very   
core, enough to change his views towards all that was normally   
considered cute.   
  
Never before in her life had she seen so much pink colour, she had been   
afraid at one point that she might have fried a brain there, or so many   
disturbingly cute objects that had framed the girl's room.  
  
"Must get out! Must get out!" the piglet repeated the mantra inside its   
head as it rushed through the expensively carpeted hallways, desperately   
looking for an escape. She knew this all had to be somehow connected to   
Ranma who just had to have his hands in the earlier misfortunes in her   
life, as how else things like this could have kept happening to her?!  
  
"Charlotte?" The piglet stopped when it heard the voice, the voice she   
would never forget. It was the sound that promised humiliation and lots of   
pink colours. "Where do you think you're going? I thought I locked you up   
into the gage," the girl with the painstakingly pink dress said. "Oh well,   
now I will just have to take you back."  
  
"Oh god, NO!!" Ryoga mentally screamed and began to run as if a demon   
from hell would be after her tail. And Azusa Shiratori could be accounted   
as such in his books.  
  
"No, bad piggy!" the girl shouted as she dashed after her wayward pet she   
had just found last night. Didn't it know what was best for it? "Charlotte!   
Come back to mommy so that she can take you back where you belong!"  
  
"I'd rather go into hell than back in there!" the piglet thought fearfully as   
it passed a corner after another. This scene replayed for some time, the   
poor animal not realizing that it was running in circles until it suddenly   
noticed that it had somehow managed to rush outside, and that it was   
now standing admits what looked to be large number of black roses.  
  
She looked back and noticed that he was no longer being pursued. With a   
heavy sigh passing through its snout the little piglet began to wander   
around in search for hot water, or would have if it hadn't been for the   
sudden, chilling voice, that while unlike Azusa's, still held equally   
disturbing quality to it.  
  
"OOHOHOHOHOHOO!" laughed the haughty voice of the girl that appeared   
before the small animal. She was approximately sixteen, long black hair,   
green eyes, pale skin, and dressed into a black leotard that threatened to   
cause a terminal nosebleed to the poor thing that was looking at her from   
a very admirable viewing angle.  
  
She had a strange glint in her eyes as she looked down on the small   
animal. "You look like to be just what I need to finish my latest   
experiment. Yes, you'll do just fine. Oohohohohoo!" she laughed and   
reached out for the small animal that had suddenly doubled the size of its   
eyes as if understanding what she had just said, but that couldn't be true,   
now could it? It was just another stupid animal.  
  
"BWEEEEEE!!" the piglet squealed and rushed into the opposite direction,   
hopping to escape yet from another lunatic. "Damn you Ranma, this is all   
your fault!!" the piglet screamed mentally and made it into the bushes,   
hoping that it could this way ditch its latest 'admirer'.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
On top of a tall dark grey apartment building, a pair of women stood on   
it's edge, quietly looking down to the streets where the numerous   
commuters streamed along their paths like a never-ending current of a   
large river.  
  
"It seems that my soon to be son-in-law is on the move," the other one of   
the women noted. She was a small, no taller than a fire hydrant and   
probably even uglier, was dressed in robes that thankfully hid most of her   
frame underneath it, and carried a long gnarled staff that exceeded her   
own size by two times at least.  
  
The other woman was much, much younger, and a hell of a lot more   
beautiful for that matter. She was dressed in what seemed to be a skimpy   
looking Chinese dress that made her assets rather prominent to anyone   
who would see her. Her she was about five and a half feet tall, quite   
achievement for someone who was obviously Chinese, something that her   
dark purple hair did not seem to reflect tough.  
  
"Aiya! What are waiting for here then?!" the girl snapped at her   
companion in Chinese dialect.  
  
The older woman raised her gnarled staff to halt the girl in where she  
stood, glaring at her through her narrowed eyes. "Patience, patience Xian   
Pu. Your impatience will become your downfall later on if you do not learn   
how to control it," she advised while giving the girl a stern look, then she   
turned to look down in the streets again. "Your husband-to-be has proven   
to be hard to catch, repeatedly so. We must not rush blindly with this or   
we might endanger to loose him from our sights again."  
  
This silenced the younger woman rather quickly, but not without making   
her pout. The girl had become rather excited now that they were this   
close to her groom to be, a quite a contrary of how she had behaved last   
night when finding him had still seemed like a faraway dream.  
  
Xian Pu sighed wistfully at the memory of her 'husband'. She wondered   
why hadn't she realized it before, but she was finding it rather hard to   
ignore how handsome he had seemed when she had first met him. And   
those eyes, those strange golden yellow eyes, were the ones that had   
completely captivated her mind. And no, it never occurred to her to   
wonder how someone could have such eyes. But then again, neither did   
anyone seem to wonder the strange hair colours that seemed to be a   
trademark among her fellow tribesmen...  
  
Not noticing the dreamy look on her great grand daughter's face, the head   
elder of the Joketzuko amazon village, narrowed her eyes and motioned   
the girl to follow her before she took off from the rooftop and bounding   
over onto the next that stood almost ten to fifteen feet away from the one   
they had been standing on.  
  
The purple haired girl didn't notice this at first and just stood there with a   
dreamy smile on her face, that is, until the small stone that her great   
grandmother had thrown at her threw her head back and snapped her   
back into the reality.  
  
"Snap out of it girl, we must hurry now and cut off son-in-law's path   
before he steers too far from our current position!" the old woman   
shouted angrily before turning away while muttering something about   
slacking youth.  
  
Xian Pu glared at the old crone for breaking her daydreams, but left it at   
that and quickly followed after the older woman's lead.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
Few minutes later and two blocks away...  
  
There were few things Ranma could appreciate in life. One was martial   
art, one that he had been practicing for most of his life. Then as a good   
second came freedom of which he had not been even aware of until he   
became cursed with the form he now possessed, which in its own right   
was bit ironic on the boy's opinion. And of course then there was honour,   
but he wasn't so sure anymore whether he knew what it exactly meant,   
his father having obscured his view of the true honour long time ago and   
thus giving the boy rather hard time in viewing some things.  
  
But now he wasn't thinking any of these things. In fact, his mind was   
completely empty now, blissfully concentrating only on the feeling he was   
getting from the air rushing up against his face as he bounded over the   
rooftops of the residents of Nerima.  
  
He wasn't sure whether it was the thrill of speed or what, but running over   
the buildings, far over the other passing pedestrians like a bird of prey   
looking for something to hunt, was giving him a rush enjoyment he got to   
feel rather rarely. It was also during moments like these that he forgot   
that he was supposed to hate his current form, and not have it filling him   
with joy and satisfaction.  
  
For almost an hour he had been doing nothing but bounding from house   
to house, crossing over streets and alleys with only few people ever   
noticing him as he passed overhead.   
  
His speed was admirable, but nothing that would strain him. Ranma knew   
he could go faster, but not without taking the risk of falling down since it   
also lessened his reaction time to a possible loose tiles that might start   
slipping underneath his feet on some rooftops. It was during his leaps that   
he truly let go and took everything he could from his new body's ability to   
glide so fast and so high.  
  
It was a quiet way for him to release his stress too. He had been packing   
quite a lot of it during his ten years long training trip and it was good to   
get some of that steam out for a while in other means than just beating   
down the old man.  
  
That thought made the boy frown. His father, Genma Saotome, had   
revealed himself to be nothing but a greedy little thief with an appetite   
that exceeded his brains in size tenfold. It wracked the boy's mind to no   
end when he began to wonder why he hadn't left the idiot excuse for a   
father long time ago, he knew that he could have made it out alone in the   
world as he was and probably still could. But would he ever be able to   
make that decision before it would be too late?  
  
While normally he would have hated to admit such thought, he could no   
longer deny that he had lost all of his respect towards his father, the man   
who had both raised and trained him through the last decade. Genma had,   
time after time, done nothing else than proven his stupidity and lack of   
real honour, one that he so many times used as an excuse to get away   
from whatever crap he had landed on. That had to come to an end.  
  
"The panda has to go as soon as I'm rid of this marriage deal," the boy   
thought firmly to himself after stopping a nearby rooftop of a five-storied   
apartment building to look up to the eastern horizon. Or would have if it   
hadn't been for the sudden flaring of his highly sensitive ears and nose.   
"Wha-?!"  
  
Spinning around provided the boy with nothing; he was alone on the roof   
with only few air ventilation tubes sticking out from the roof. But then why   
did he have the feeling that there was someone close by?   
  
"I know there's someone here, I can feel it..." He glanced to his sides and   
yet saw nothing. He couldn't see or feel nothing out of the ordinary, but   
then he did pick something with his nose, something else than just the   
exhaust fumes coming from the countless cars that were pumping it up   
into the air all around the city.  
  
"What is this smell?" he thought while rubbing his nose. "There is   
someone close by," he muttered out loud, but then stopped when he   
heard the light rustling of someone's feet upon the small rocks that were   
covering the flat rooftop. It would have gone unnoticed for human   
capabilities to sense, but Ranma already knew that he wasn't quite human   
anymore...  
  
"Who's there?!" He demanded and dropped into ready stance, his clawed   
hands hidden into his sleeves tough. "Show yourself, you can't hide from   
me anymore!"  
  
For a moment there was complete silence, well as far as the general   
commotion from the streets below and the constant gentle howling of   
wind were accounted. But then it was broken.  
  
"My, my..." came the voice of an old woman not too far from Ranma, "You   
have some rather keen senses, boy." The mentioned woman came into   
view from behind one of the air ventilation tubes that were sticking off   
from the rooftop.   
  
The old woman wasn't very tall, few feet if even that, long silver grey hair   
that was longer than her body, badly wrinkled skin, and some old dark   
green robes that covered her withered body like a blanket. She also had a   
gnarled wooden staff in her hands.  
  
"Whoa," the boy muttered, looking rather impressed about something, but   
then broke the mood with one of his usual foot-to-mouth comments.   
"Never seen a living mummy before."  
  
The old woman narrowed her eyes at the boy who already had lowered his   
guard by crossing his hands back into his sleeves, but did nothing to move   
against him, yet. "You should show some respect to your elder's, boy. Its   
called politeness."  
  
As in response Ranma just snorted through his nostrils and eyed at the   
woman lazily, but then suddenly snapped out from it when he heard   
something closing in from his right, just beyond his field of vision.   
  
Ranma mentally cursed himself for letting his guard down and prepared to   
fight for his life, or would have if his sudden shift of stance wouldn't have   
made his hands grab at something large and soft that was covered by a   
rather tight looking Chinese dress.  
  
"Nihao, airen," greeted the girl whose breasts he was now holding, her   
eyes sparkling with mischief as she stared right back into his.  
  
"What the...?!" was all that he could say before he managed to jerk his   
hands off from the girl's assets as if burned by them, and earning a   
slightly disappointed look from the girl. But that was just the beginning.  
  
"You!" He shouted and pointed at her, as realized it was the same girl   
whom he had defeated in that amazon village three months ago.   
  
The girl just smiled and nodded before lunging at him with her arms wide,   
promptly tackling the shocked boy to the ground like a tree trunk. And   
before he even manage to put up his defences, her realized that his both   
arms had been incapacitated by the girl's surprisingly strong and firm   
embrace that left him defenceless against the pair of soft lips that quickly   
descended and meshed perfectly with his.  
  
"Mmmwwwhaaaat?!!" was all that the poor boy managed to stutter   
through their joined lips, his mind reeling over with confusion created by   
this unfamiliar situation.  
  
"Heh, may I introduce ourselves? My name is Cologne, and this is my   
great granddaughter, Shampoo." The old crone snickered after walking   
beside the two, smirking at the heavily blushing boy who was attempting   
to dislodge himself from the over affectionate mass of curvy flesh.  
  
"Eh...well, nice to meet ya, but...uh, could you, like, let go of me?" the boy   
whined almost pathetically as he continued to squirm, constantly moving   
his face so that the girl couldn't lip-lock him again. Of course he could   
have simply wrenched himself free from the girl's grasp with sheer   
strength, but not without causing some rather permanent injuries.  
  
"Wo ai ni!" the girl purred and rubbed her face against his, almost causing   
the boy to blow an artery.   
  
"Whoa! W-Whoa lady! I-I must say t-that I'm flattered b-but...I d-don't   
think this is quite proper..." Ranma muttered lamely, trying to find   
something to get the girl off him. He was slowly falling into desperation,   
his father had never taught him any counter moves for situations like this,   
and thus was finding himself in quite a bind.  
  
"Proper?" the old ghoul snickered, "Boy, this is your wife. You're expected   
to be doing things like this from now on."  
  
"Huh? What do you mea..." the words died in the boy's mouth as he   
realized what had been said. "WIFE?!!" he bellowed, and in the process   
somehow slipped away from the affectionate embrace, his eyes staring at   
the old woman with shock evident on his face.  
  
"S-She can't be my w-wife!" the boy almost screamed while pointing his   
finger at the girl, pacing back according to the girl's attempts to re-  
embrace him. "I haven't gotten even married yet!"  
  
"Oh, but you have, son-in-law," Cologne replied with a smile, she was   
finding this show rather amusing. "When you defeated her back in the   
village you legally became her husband according to our laws, which was   
just now confirmed by the kiss of marriage that Shampoo gave you."  
  
"What?!" the boy cried while jumping over the purple haired girl who had   
tried to grab him by just simply lunging herself at him. "But...but...but I   
just can't do this! I'm not ready for this kind of stuff!"  
  
Shampoo stopped advancing towards him and took slightly hurt look on   
her face as she continued to look at him right into the eyes, a small tear   
drop falling down her left cheek. "You...no like Shampoo?" the girl almost   
whined. "Think wife...ugly?"  
  
There were three things in the world that Ranma Saotome could not   
resist. Challenges, food, and crying girls, and with the way purple haired   
girl in front of him was preparing to wail was a perfect trap for him.  
  
"I'msorry! I'msorry! I didn't mean it!" the boy panicked and quickly   
rushed to the girl's side while gently embracing her, not realizing that the   
girl had returned the favour until it was too late. "Ack! You cheater!"  
  
"Tehee," the girl giggled bit 'too' girlishly as she latched herself firmly onto   
his chest. There was no way she was going to let him go this time.   
Unfortunately she had never met anyone like Ranma, and thus was ill   
prepared to the sudden leap that he made, which tore her beloved away   
from her grasp rather effectively.  
  
Before neither Shampoo nor her great grandmother could react, the boy   
was already on the edge of the roof and down in the streets after making   
one of his impressive leaps again.  
  
"After him!" Cologne snapped at the girl, "You don't want loose him again,   
do you?"  
  
The girl shook her head, her long purple ponytails with two large hair   
ornaments billowing violently after her trial as she did, and then without   
another word she was off the roof, following her husband's lead through   
the crowd as fast as her abilities allowed.  
  
Cologne didn't follow them, as instead of doing that, she had taken an   
alternative route, thinking of cutting the boy's escape route off before he   
could get too far. The old crone hadn't lived for two centuries for nothing,   
and thus could evaluate tactics quite efficiently.  
  
"The boy is bit resistant, but I think we can work on it before we go back,"   
she thought with a chuckle escaping from her throat. Cologne had very   
little doubt that her son-in-law could ditch her great granddaughter, she   
had been trained to be quite a tracker, even in urban environment like   
this, and thus didn't keep too much of a hurry as she bounded towards   
her own destination.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"What the hell is my life becoming to?!" he thought as he bounded over   
the rooftops, the persistent purple haired girl still visible as he looked over   
one of his shoulders.   
  
While Ranma knew he could normally outrun her by sheer speed, the   
irregularity of the terrain was preventing him from going onward with his   
top speed lest he wished to risk falling onto something he couldn't see,   
and running on the streets would draw too much attention, so that option   
was out.  
  
Every time he looked behind his back he could see a glimpse of his   
pursuer and would always change his course a bit so that he could have   
better chances in shaking her off. He had considered just hiding, but the   
risk was too high, and would he be caught he doubted could squirm his   
way out from her grasp for the third time, the mere thought of it making   
him blush.  
  
"Damn! I gotta lose her somehow!" the boy mentally cried with   
desperation etched on his face. He had fought opponents ten times   
stronger than himself, faced hordes of wolves, he had gone through the   
Neko-ken, swam across the China sea, received a curse from Jusenkyo,   
but none of those experiences were comparable to this.  
  
"Airen!" came the amorous call of the purple haired amazon who had   
somehow caught up with him, but was still over hundred feet behind.   
Ranma was starting to have a feeling that the only way he could get rid of   
the girl was to exhaust her.   
  
There was no way he was going to let himself to be caught like this.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Kagome wasn't having much fun today. As not only had she been forced   
to rush into school, but also had she been late from the English test that   
hadn't gone as well as she had been hopping it to go.  
  
"Waaaaaah! I'm going to fail that damn test! I just know it!" she wailed at   
her desk during the lunch break. Her friends were trying to console her,   
but not with much success.  
  
"Now, now...it can't be 'that' bad, now can it, Kagome-chan?"  
  
"Oh yes it can! You don't know how hard I studied for this test, and only  
to have it ruined just because I slept bit too long this morning!" Kagome   
wailed right back at her friends.  
  
There was very little the others could say to that, fully aware that when   
Kagome was like this there would be nothing that they could do to break   
her out from it.  
  
For moment Kagome didn't do anything else than rest her forehead   
against the desk, her mind brooding over and over how badly her test had   
gone. But then suddenly she felt something strange, tug of some sort.   
"Huh?" she muttered while raising her head to look around.  
  
The class was mostly empty due to the lunch break and her friends had   
given her some room to brood alone. Then the tug became stronger,   
reminding her from the strange sensation she had felt yesterday when she   
had been in Nerima.  
  
"What the?" she gasped as he felt the tug turn into almost violent wrench,   
but without any psychical effect on her. The tug was coming from her left   
side where the windows where. She couldn't see nothing more than the   
dark grey buildings that stood in rows at the other side of the school, and   
was beginning to wonder what the heck was going on with her. But that   
was when she noticed something else.  
  
A figure, a young man in black hakama and gi top was on top of one of   
the buildings, or rather jumping off them and only to land on the next.   
"Eeeh? Who is he? How is he doing that?" she gasped out loud, catching   
the attention of her friends who were no staring at her.  
  
"Kagome-chan? Is everything alright?"  
  
Instead of answer Kagome just rushed closer to the windows and watched   
with fascinated eyes as the figure atop the buildings made several thirty   
feet leaps as if the laws of gravity weren't applied to it.  
  
"What are you looking at Kagome?" asked one of her three friends who   
had been in the class from the start of the lunch break. She had moved   
closer by now, the two others trying to look for what ever it was that their   
friend was staring at.  
  
Then they too noticed the figure.  
  
"Wha-?! There's somebody on the roof!" pointed the girl with the short   
brown bowl cut. The two others quickly turned their gazes along the path   
that the girl was pointing and soon gasped in unison when they saw the   
figure make one more leap, this time one carrying over forty feet in   
length.  
  
"Wait! Look, there's someone following him!" the same girl added, this   
time pointing at the purple haired girl who was bounding after the long   
haired boy with impressive leaps of her own.  
  
And that was also when Kagome realized that the first figure they had   
seen was now turned towards the school. She wasn't sure how she knew   
it, but she was absolutely positive that he was staring right at her.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
It had been almost an hour since Ranma began his race against the over   
amorous amazon girl that amazingly had not yet given up on him. "Damn!   
How long can she keep this up?! We've run through half of the city by   
now!"  
  
"Whoa!" he cried out as he avoided the sudden brick that had been   
thrown from above. He hadn't seen or heard it; he had just somehow   
sensed it, and had he not dodged it, it would have surely made him   
stumble upon his feet and get caught by his pursuer. "What the...?!" he   
gasped while turning to look up where saw the familiar crone smirking   
down at him.   
  
"Why you...!" he growled while shaking his fist, but quickly stopped and   
leapt up when he realized that he had been standing around and that   
there was that distinctive feeling of something, or rather someone, coming   
from behind his back.  
  
From atop the taller building Cologne was smiling to herself as she   
followed the boy's movements. "Hmm, it seems that son-in-law has some   
truly remarkable instincts. He is too young and obviously inexperienced to   
have learned the secrets of chi manipulation, so there is no other way of   
explaining how he avoided the brick and now my great granddaughter. His   
contribution to our tribe will be a notable one." The smirk on her face was   
growing to be rather disturbing.  
  
Back on the other rooftop Ranma was running again, cursing the amazon   
girl's persistence. "Whoa! Hey, now look her miss! I can't marry you just   
because some stupid laws of your village says so!" he snapped at the girl,   
almost causing him to be caught that time thanks to his carelessness.  
  
"Airen stop running away now, so that Shampoo can show how good wife   
she be," the purple haired girl responded giddily. Despite her appearance,   
however, Shampoo, or Xian Pu as her mother language would express her   
name, was starting to get weary with the way her quarry kept avoiding   
her.  
  
"Damn, this is getting nuts!" the boy thought desperately as he turned   
and jumped onto the next rooftop, his mind half-wondering why the girl's   
great grandmother hadn't tried anything new yet, and making him worry   
that she might have already laid a trap for him.  
  
But as his thoughts were averted from that, he realized that the strange   
sensation that he had felt at the Tendo dojo last night was back again.  
  
"Huh? What's with this weird tugging again?" he wondered as he jumped   
down on the building rooftop. His eyes quickly locked with the large white   
school building across the street, few hundred feet away. There were lots   
of students strolling around building, telling him that it was a school   
building, but none of them caught his attention, not until his eyes locked   
on one of the third floor windows. There was a group of four girls watching   
at him.  
  
If he hadn't been so focused on thinking why he was feeling the tug   
coming from them, he might have had realized that his vision had zoomed   
in and that he was capable of seeing them with disturbing clarity, as if   
there wouldn't have been more than few feet between them instead of the   
actual three hundred.  
  
Unfortunately his momentary distraction was all that Shampoo needed to   
catch him. "Aaaaa! Leggo! Leggo of me damn it!" the boy cried out as he   
found himself hopping up and down with the girl firmly latched onto his   
torso.  
  
As in response the girl just shook her head and continued to keep that   
seemingly ever-present smile on her face. This time she had the boy in   
quite good grasp, her other arm wrapped over his right shoulder while the   
other went underneath his left, giving her a perfect position to twine her   
hands together from the front and this way allowing her to lock herself   
across his back.  
  
But with the way Ranma kept bouncing around, she was having problems   
with locking her legs around his waist or else she would have already   
subdued him.  
  
However, that was when a unexpected factor came into play.  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
Ryoga was lost and he was angry, nothing new there. It had taken most   
of the day for him to escape from that weird gymnast, much thanks to the   
bath house he had somehow stumbled upon. He had been kicked out for   
not having paid for entry tough.  
  
Now human, fully clothed, and set upon his familiar path of vengeance,   
Ryoga was back on track. Surely after such trials the gods would see him   
fit to find his nemesis so that he could extract his revenge.  
  
"Damn you Ranma! Show yourself so that I can finally regain my honour!"   
the boy cried angrily up into the heavens, drawing several odd looks from   
the bystanders that quickly gave him a wide area of clearance as they   
moved away from him.  
  
It irritated the boy that he had been chasing for the other boy for almost   
four years now without success, and now that his hated rival had changed   
his appearance according to what he had heard was not making things   
any easier.  
  
"Curse you for trying to disguise yourself from me!" the boy cursed out   
loud with his fists shaking in fury. "But no matter, I now know what you   
look like thanks to that farmer you visited week ago." It had been through   
sheer luck that he had met the farmer, the man had been clearly upset   
about the pair who had visited him and had given helpful descriptions of   
Ranma's new appearance. It seemed that the pair had runoff with some of   
the man's valuables.  
  
Or at least Genma had, not that it would have mattered to Ryoga.  
  
"When I get my hands on that honourless..." Ryoga began his ranting   
again, but paused when he realized that there was two people jumping   
over the rooftops two blocks ahead. Other one was a girl with long purple   
hair tied into twin ponytails and form fitting Chinese dress, and the other   
was a long black haired boy in pitch black hamaka and gi top.  
  
Despite the small size of his brains that didn't change much during the   
transformations, it didn't take more than a second for Ryoga to recognize   
his target.  
  
"Ranma!! I've finally found you!" the boy bellowed, a maniacal look on his   
face that made the other pedestrians on the street to run away from him.   
In a few instants he was on the rooftops, and surprisingly heading to the   
right direction.  
  
"You won't get away from me this time!!"  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
  
"Ranma Saotome! Prepare to DIE!!"  
  
Both Ranma and Shampoo's head snapped up towards the dark silhouette   
that descended upon them from the taller building that stood beside the   
one they were on, and with a quick dodge the black clad boy avoided the   
earth shattering blow that caved in the rooftop as if it were mere paper.  
  
"Huh? Who the hell are you?!" Ranma snapped at the stranger while   
trying to dislodge the amazon from his back.  
  
"I've finally found you Saotome," the new boy stated grimly while pulling   
his bamboo umbrella out from the partially crumbled rooftop. He was   
dressed in what seemed to be dirty and well worn travelling clothes and   
black slacks, but the details that caught the pairs attention the most was   
the yellow bandana and the distinctive fangs that showed quite clearly   
when he snarled at the other boy. "I won't let you run away from me   
anymore!"   
  
"Run away?" muttered the longhaired boy while trying to scratch his neck,   
the girl hanging from his back was making it rather hard tough. "Why   
would I run away from you? Who the hell are you anyway? And why did   
you attack me? I think you owe me an explanation buddy."  
  
The bandana-clad boy sneered at him and took a swipe with his obviously   
heavy umbrella. Ranma was quite positive that letting that thing hit him   
would cause some bad injuries, as the rooftop could testify that.  
  
"Don't tell me you've forgotten me Saotome!" the boy roared angrily as he   
lunged at the entangled pair, ignoring the fact that the girl was not part of   
his revenge. "I will get my revenge, as because of you I've seen hell!!"  
  
"Eh? What the hell are you talking about, man?!" Ranma snapped angrily   
as he skilfully leapt over the boys enraged swings that took off one of the   
air ventilation pipes in the process. "And stop swinging that thing so damn   
carelessly, you might hurt someone with it!"  
  
"That's the idea!" the other boy replied angrily as he tore his bandana off   
his forehead, only to reveal that there had been another one waiting   
underneath it.   
  
What happened next caught the longhaired boy off guard, as never before   
had Ranma seen anyone throw a piece of cloth as if it were a solid   
projectile, not ones that could cut through metal at least.   
  
"Whoa!! Hey, quit it already! At least tell me your goddamn name and   
why you're attacking me like this!" Ranma snapped indignantly. "Can't   
you see I'm bussy?!" he continued while pointing his thumb at Shampoo   
who was still clinging onto his back with rather satisfied look on her face.  
  
This seemed to enrage the umbrella wielding boy even further. "How dare   
you to take me this lightly, Saotome?!" he bellowed before tearing four   
more bandanas off his head, revealing that there was more of them than   
just two. "And don't play fool with me! Not after running away from our   
man-to-man fight four years ago!!"  
  
"Man-to-man...fight?" Ranma muttered with a slightly dumb look on his   
face. Then suddenly a look of recognition lit up his face. "Ryoga?...Ryoga   
Hibiki? Is that you?!" he said while smiling. "How have you been man?   
Haven't seen you in a long time."  
  
Up on the other rooftop Cologne was starting to wonder if it was safe for   
her great granddaughter to stay so close to the two boys, especially with   
the way the newcomer had started to glow with slightly sickly green aura   
of depression. "Shampoo! Get off from son-in-law and stay away from the   
fight!"  
  
The girl in question gave a questioning look at the great grandmother but   
did not question her orders and quickly dislodged herself from her quarry,   
much to Ranma's relief.  
  
That was also the point when Ryoga finally made his furry known. "You   
dare to speak so friendly to me after what you've done to me?!" the boy   
roared and then leapt at his nemesis while throwing his choice of weapons at him. "Die Ranma!!"  
  
"Cool down Ryoga!" cried the other boy as he easily dodged the bandana   
barrage and the overhead smash which had followed right behind them,   
one that made the rooftop crumble even further. "I don't know what   
you're so heated up from, but it wasn't me who ran off form that fight four   
years ago. I waited three days for you!"  
  
"Yes, but when I came on the fourth you were already gone, you lying   
coward!" Ryoga shouted angrily while throwing his umbrella, aimed at his   
opponent's head, but instead of hitting its target it found itself embedded   
into the wall of the building right next to the one they were standing upon.  
  
"Lying coward?!" Ranma gasped with surprise evident on his face. He had   
been called to be many things during his life, but being called a coward   
and a liar to boot, was something that he wouldn't stand for.  
  
Then before anyone, even Cologne who had over two hundred years of   
experience under her belt, could react, Ranma had lunged towards his   
attacker and was now grasping the other boy's throat with vice like grip.   
  
"Nobody...nobody calls me that and gets away with it!" Ranma was staring   
at Ryoga right into the eyes, his hand keeping the eternally lost boy just   
over the edge of the rooftop.  
  
Ryoga cursed his own carelessness and tried to kick his nemesis into the   
face, but found himself flung across the rooftop instead. "Argh! Damn   
you!"  
  
Ranma just shook his head as he pulled up his sleeves, revealing his long   
claws that now somehow seemed to be longer than normally, and took up   
a stance. "If this is the only way we can solve this problem, then lets get   
it over with."  
  
Up on the rooftop both Cologne and Shampoo, who had climbed up there   
few moments ago, gasped when they saw the claws on the boy's hands.   
  
"What on earth is going on here?" the old crone muttered to herself with   
shocked look on her face, but it lasted only for a moment as it turned into   
smirk again. "I see...heh, well this explains a lot of the boy's aura..."  
  
At her side, her great granddaughter was giving her a odd look. "What are   
you saying great grandmother?" the girl asked in her native language  
instead of using her broken Japanese.  
  
"Oh, nothing much," the old woman chuckled with a pleased look on her   
face. "I just discovered why the boy's aura has been acting up and why he   
is so strong and fast as he is."  
  
"..." the girl continued to just stare at her.  
  
"He is obviously a youkai, or a hanyou," Cologne continued while pointing   
her staff at Ranma. "I'd suspect the later since the boy still looks mostly   
human, but I can't be sure since he doesn't show any other distinctive   
animal or beast like psychical appearances aside his claws."  
  
Shampoo wasn't sure what to make out of what her great grandmother   
was saying. "Great grandmother?"  
  
"Yes, what is it child?"  
  
"What is a youkai or hanyou?"  
  
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +  
End of Chapter two...  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
Next chapter: The duel, discoveries, and schoolgirls...  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
  
Ok, so how was it? Good, bad, or total crap? Tell me what you think and   
I'll see what I can do to improve the future chapters. This one was done in   
rather choppy manner, so I don't expect any extraordinary amount of   
praises coming from this one...especially with the way I ended it. 8P  
  
Also, for those who have been bombing me with requests to write faster I   
can only say this. I'm a working student who has to go both to work and   
school, school in the morning and work on the evening, so I think it would   
be understandable if my pace isn't the fastest, especially when I feel that   
what I write should be finished, and not just, "acceptable".  
  
Anyways, I hope I can write the next chapter bit faster than this one, but   
I can't guarantee anything since my old man has been threatening to   
throw me out of the house if I don't pass my next tests...yes, life tends to   
suck on some of us.  
  
"Angels have always given me the creeps."   
-John Constantine to Tim Hunter,  
"The Books of Magic" 


End file.
